\ 

48th  Congress,  )  SENATE. 
1st  Sessio7i,  } 


IX  THE  SENATE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


March  28,  1884.— Ordered  to  be  printed. 


Mr.  Palmer,  from  the  Committee  on  Woman  Suffrage,  submitte  1  the 

l'ollowiD<i' 

REPORT: 

[To  accompany  S.  R.  19.] 

The  Committee  on  Woman  Suffrage  submit  the  following  report,  to  accom- 
pany Senate  joint  resolution  19,  proposing  an  amendment  to  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  : 

All  persons  born  or  natnralized  in  the  United  States  and  snbject  to  the  jnrisdiction 
thereof  are  citizens  of  the  United  States  and  of  the  State  wherein  they  reside.  (XIV 
Amendment,  section  1.) 

"Women  are  persons  born  or  natnralized  in  the  United  States,  and  are 
therefore  citizens  of  the  United  States  and  of  the  States  in  which  they 
reside. 

Xo  State  shall  make  or  enforce  any  law  that  sliall  abridge  the  privileges  or  immuni- 
ties of  citizens  of  the  United  States ;  nor  shall  any  State  dei^rive  any  person  of  life, 
liberty,  or  property  without  due  process  of  law,  nor  deny  to  any  ])erson  within  its 
Jnrisdiction  the  equal  i)rotection  of  the  laws. 

The  privileges  and  immunities  of  ^Yomen  citizens  are  abridged  by  the 
several  States  in  many  ways.  The  fundamental  privilege — "the  right 
of  citizens  to  vote  " — is  not  only  abridged,  but  in  most  of  the  States  totally 
denied. 

It  is  to  be  considered  that  in  adopting  this  resolution  Congress  b}'  no 
means  imposes  woman  suffrage  upon  the  country;  nor  does  it  necessarily, 
even,  declare  in  its  favor.  But  in  view  of  the  extent  of  the  agitation 
upon  the  subject,  and  of  the  number  and  respectability  of  the  petitioners 
in  its  favor.  Congress  simply  takes  the  initiative  to  submit  the(iuestion 
to  the  i)eoi)le  of  the  several  States  through  their  respective  legislatnres. 

The  Constitution  is  wisely  conservative  in  the  provisions  for  its  own 
amendment.  And  your  committee  deem  it  eminently  j^roper  in  view  of 
the  rajndly  increasing  numbers  who  have  for  the  last  eighteen  years  so 
earnestly,  persistently,  and  patiently  indicated  a  desire  for  an  amend- 
ment, that  the  amending  power,  the  State  legislatures,  should  be  con- 
sulted. 

We,  therefore,  report  back  the  i)roposed  resolution  for  the  considera- 
tion of  the  Senate,  and  recommend  its  passage. 

The  committee  api)end  hereto  the  remarks  made  before  this  committee, 
of  March  7, 1881,  and  also  the  remarks  made  before  the  Senate  Judiciary 
Committee,  printed  in  Senate  Mis.  Doc.  Xo.  74,  Forty-seventh  Congress, 
lirst  session,  as  a  part  of  this  report. 

T.  W.  PALMEK. 
H.  W.  BLAIIJ. 
E.  G.  LAPUAM. 


Report 
No.  399. 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


My  view  of  the  subject  is  embodied  in  my  qualified  assent  to  tbe  re- 
port lioretofore  made. 

n.  B.  ANTHONY. 

The  followiu^i*  is  tbe  assent  of  Senator  Antbony  to  tbe  report  of  tbe 
Committee  on  AVoniau  Suffrage  in  tbe  Forty-seventb  Congress,  above 
referred  to : 

The  Constitution  is  wisely  conservative  in  tbe  provision  for  its  own  aniendnient.  It 
is  eminently  proper  that  whenever  a  hirj^e  number  of  tbe  ]>eople  have  indicated  a  de- 
sire for  an  aniendnient  tbe  jud<>ment  of  the  amendin<i-  ])o\Yer  sbouhi  be  consulted.  In 
view  of  the  extensive  agitation  of  the  (juestion  of  woman  sutfia<;e,  and  the  numerous 
and  respectalile  petitions  that  have  been  presented  to  Congress  in  its  support,  I  unite 
witli  the  committee  in  recommending  that  the  proposed  an  endmeut  be  submitted  to 
the  States. 

H.  B.  ANTHONY. 


ARGUMENTS    BEFORE    THE    SELECT    COMMITTEE   ON  WOMAN 
SUFFRAGE.  UNITED  STATES  SENATE,  MARCH  7,  1884, 

BY 

A  committee  of  the  Sixteenth  Animal  Washiuf/ton  Convention  of  the  Xa- 
tional  Woman  Suffrage  Association  in  favor  of  a  sixteenth  amendment 
to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States^  that  shall  protect  the  right  of 
tvomen  citizens  to  vote  in  the  several  States  of  the  Union. 

ORDER  OF  PROCEEDING. 

The  Chairman.  (Senator  Cockrell.)  We  have  allotted  the  time  to  be  divided  as 
the  speakers  may  desire  among  themselves.    We  are  now  ready  to  hear  the  Ladies. 

Miss  SiTSAX  B,  Anthony.  Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen  of  the  select  committee : 
This  is  the  sixteenth  time  that  we  have  come  before  Congress  in  person,  and  the  nine- 
teenth annually  by  petitions.  Ever  since  the  war,  from  the  winter  of  IriGo-'dO,  we 
have  reguhirly  sent  up  i)etitions  asking  for  the  national  protection  of  the  citizen's 
ri'^ht  to^vote  \vhen  the  citizen  liappens  to  be  a  woman.  We  are  here  again  for  the 
sanie  purpose.  I  do  not  propose  to  speak  now,  but  to  introduce  the  other  speakers, 
and  at  the  close  ])erhaps  will  state  to  the  committee  the  reasons  why  we  come  to 
Congress.  The  other  s|)eaker8  will  give  their  thought  from  the  stand-point  of  their 
respective  States.  I  will  tirst  introduce  to  the  committee  Mrs.  Harriet  R.  Shattuck, 
of  Boston,  Mass. 

REMARKS  BY  MRS.  HARRIET  R.  SHATTUCK. 

Mrs.  Shattuck.  Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen  :  It  seems  as  if  it  were  almost  unnec- 
essary for  us  to  come  here  at  this  meeting,  because  I  feel  that  all  we  have  to  say  and 
all  we  liave  to  claim  is  known  to  you,  and  we  cannot  add  anything  to  what  has  been 
said  in  tbe  past  sixtetn  years. 

But  I  should  like  to  say  one  thing,  and  that  is,  that  in  my  work  it  has  seemed  that 
if  we  could  eoiivince  everybody  of  the  violhrs  of  the  sutVragists  we  woubl  go  far  to- 
wards removing  jirejudices,  1  know  that  those  motives  are  very  much  misunderstood. 
I'crsons  think  of  us  as  ambitious  women,  who  are  desirous  for  fame,  and  who  merely 
come  forwanl  to  make  s])eeches  and  get  befon^  the  public,  or  else  they  think  that  we 
are  unfortunate  beings  with  no  homes,  or  unhappy  wives,  who  are  get! ing  ()ur  liveli- 
hood in  Ibis  sort  of  way.  If  we  could  conviiuie  every  man  who  has  a  vote  in  this  Re- 
public that  this  is  not  the  case,  I  helic^ve  we  could  go  far  towards  removing  the  i)reju- 
dice.  against  us.  If  we  could  make  them  sec  that  we  are  working  here  merely  because 
we  know  that  the  cause  is  right,  and  we  feel  that  we  must  work  for  it,  that  there  is  a 
]>ower  <)utsi<le  of  ours(dves  wliicli  impels  us  onward,  which  sa.vs  to  us  go  forward  and 
H])eak  to  the  pe(»ple  and  try  to  bring  them  uj)  to  a  sense  of  their  duty  and  of  our  right. 
This  istlu'  l»eli«'f  that  I  have  in  reganl  to  our  position  on  this  (luestion.  It  is  a  mat- 
ter of  duty  with  us,  and  that  is  all. 

In  Massachusetts  1  rejnesent  a  very  much  larger  number  of  women  than  issujiposed. 
It  has  always  been  said  that  vi'ry  few  women  wish  to  vote.  Believing  that  this  ob- 
iectiou,  although  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  rights  of  the  cause,  ought  to  be  lyet, 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


3 


the  association  of  wliicli  I  am  piesidoiit  inaugurated  last  yoar  a  sort  of  canvass,  wliicli 
1  believe  never  had  been  attempted  before,  wliereby  we  obtained  tiie  jjroportion  of 
-women  in  favor  and  o])j)osed  to  sutfraue  in  differiMit  localities  of  our  State.  We  took 
four  localities  in  the  city  of  Boston,  two  in  smaller  citirs,  and  two  in  thecountry  dis- 
tricts, and  one  also  of  school  teacluMs  in  nine  schools  of  ouo,  town.  Those  school 
teachiTs  wcn^  unanimously  in  favor  of  sulfra<;-e,  and  in  the  ninc^  localities  we  found 
that  the  ju-oportion  of  women  in  favor  was  very  lar«;<»  as  a^^ainst  those  opposed.  The 
total  of  wouH'U  canvassed  was  814.  Those  in  favor  were  4U5>  those  opposed  41,  indif- 
ferent, ItUi;  refused  to  sign,  IGO  ;  not  seen,  3D.  This,  you  see,  is  a  very  lar«;e  i)ropor- 
tion  in  favor.  Those  indirterent  and  tho.se  who  were  not  seen  were  not  included, 
because  we  claim  that  nobody  <  an  yet  say  that  they  are  opi)osed  or  in  favor  until 
they  declare  themselves;  but  the  40.')  in  favor  against  the  44  opposed  were  as  i)  to  1. 
These  canvasses  were  made  by  women  who  were  of  perfect  respectability  and  respon- 
sibility, and  they  swore  before  a  justice  of  the  peace  as  to  the  truth  of  their  state- 
ments. 

So  we  have  in  Massachusetts  this  reliable  canvass  of  the  number  of  women  in  favor 
as  to  those  opi)osed,  and  we  find  that  it  is  9  to  1. 

These  women,  then,  are  the  class  whom  I  represent  here,  and  they  are  women  who 
cannot  come  here  themselves.  Vei'y  few  women  in  the  country  can  come  here  and  do 
this  work,  or  do  the  work  in  their  States,  because  they  are  in  their  homes  attending 
to  their  duties,  but  none  the  h^ss  are  they  believers  in  this  cause.  We  would  not  any 
more  than  any  man  in  the  country  ask  a  wonuiu  to  leave  her  home  duties  to  go  into 
this  work,  bi^t  a  lew  of  us  are  so  situated  that  we  can  do  it,  and  we  come  here  and  we 
go  to  the  State  legislatures  representing  all  the  women  of  the  country  in  this  work. 

What  we  ask  is]  not  that  we  may  have  the  ballot  to  obtain  any  particular  thing,  al- 
though we  know  that  better  things  will  come  about  from  it,  but  merely  because  it  is 
our  right,  and  as  a  matter  of  justice  we  claim  it  as  human  b(!ii)gs  and  as  citizens,  and 
as  nu)ral,  responsible,  and  spiritual  beings,  whose  voice  ought  to  be  heard  in  the  Gov- 
ernment, and  who  ought  to  take  hand  with  nwn  and  help  the  world  to  become  better. 

Gentlemen,  you  have  kejjt  women  just  a  little  ste])  below  you.  It  is  only  a  short 
step.  You  shower  down  favors  upon  us  it  is  true,  still  we  remain  below  you,  the  re- 
cipients of  favors  without  the  right  to  take  w^hat  is  our  own.  We  ask  that  this  shall 
be  changed  ;  that  you  shall  take  us  by  the  hand  and  lift  us  up  to  the  same  political 
level  with  you,  where  we  shall  have  rights  with  you,  and  stand  equal  with  you  be- 
fore the  law. 

REMARKS  BY  MRS.  :MAY  WRIGHT  SEWALL. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  will  now  introduce  to  the  committee  Mrs.  May  Wright  Sewall,  of 
In(liana])olis,  who  is  the  chairman  of  our  executive  committee. 

Mrs.  Sewall.  Gentlemen  of  the  committee  :  Genth'inen,  I  believe,  differ  somewhat 
in  their  political  opinions.  It  will  not  then  be  surprising,  I  sup})ose,  that  I  should 
dilfer  somewhat  from  my  friend  in  regard  to  the  knowledge  that  you  prooably  ])ossess 
upon  our  question.  I  do  not  believe  that  you  know  all  that  we  know  about  the  wo- 
men of  this  country,  for  I  believe  that  if  yon  did  know  even  all  that  I  know,  and  my 
knowledge  is  much  more  limited  than  that  of  many  of  my  sisters,  long  ago  the  six- 
teenth amendment,  for  which  we  ask,  would  have  been  passed  through  your  influ- 
ence. 

I  remember  that  when  I  was  here  two  years  ago  and  had  the  honor  of  a])pearing 
before  the  committee,  who  granted  us,  on  that  occasion,  what  you  are'so  kind  and 
courteous  to  grant  on  this  occasion,  an  opi)ortunity  to  s[)eak  before  you,  I  told  you 
that  I  represented  at  least  seventy  thousand  wcmen  who  had  asked  for  the  ballot  in 
my  State,  and  I  tried  then  to  remind  the  members  of  the  committee  that  had  seventy 
thousand  Indiana  men  asked  for  any  measure  from  the  Congress  that  then  occupied 
this  Capitol,  that  measure  would  have  secured  the  most  deliberate  cousideratiDU  from 
their  hands,  and,  in  all  probability,  its  passage  by  the  Congress.  Of  that  there  can  be 
no  doubt. 

I  do  not  wi.sh  to  exaggerate  my  constituency,  but  during  the  last  two  years,  and 
since  I  had  the  honor  of  addressing  the  committee,  the  work  of  woman  suifrage  has 
progressed  very  rapidly  in  my  State.  The  number  of  women  who  have  tound  them- 
selves in  circumstances  to  work  openly  and  whose  spirit  has  been  drawn  into  it  has 
largely  increased,  and  as  the  workers  have  multiplied  the  results  have  increased. 
While  we  have  not  t  iken  the  careful  canvass  that  has  l)een  so  wisely  and  judiciously 
taken  in  Massachusetts,  so  that  I  can  present  to  you  the  exact  number  of  wouu-n  who 
wodld  to-day  ajjpeal  for  ;->utlrage,  I  know  that  I  can,  far  within  the  bounds  of  possible 
truth,  state  that  while  I  represented  seventy  thousand  wouumi  in  my  State  two  years 
ago,  who  desired  the  adoption  of  the  sixteenth  amendment,  I  represent  ro-day  twice 
that  number. 

Should  any  one  come  up  from  Indiana,  pivotal  State  as  it  has  been  long  called  in 
national  elections,  saying  that  he  rei)resented  the  wish  of  one  hundred  and  forty 


4 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


thousand  Indiana  men,  gentleuien,  would  you  scorn  liis  appeal  ?  Would  you  treat  it 
lightly  ?  Not  at  all.  Vou  know  that  it  would  receive  the  most  candid  considera- 
tion. You  know  that  it  wouhl  receive  not  niendy  respectful  consideration,  but  im- 
nu'diate  aiul  prompt  and  just  action  upon  your  part. 

I  have  been  told  since  I  have  reached  Washinijton  that  of  all  women  in  the  country 
Indiana  wonuni  have  the  least  to  com[)lain  of,  and  the  least  reason  for  coming  to  the 
Ignited  States  Capitol  with  their  petitions  and  the  statement  of  their  needs,  because  we 
have  received  from  onr  own  legislature  such  amendnu^nt  .and  amelioration  of  the  old 
unjust  laws.  In  one  sense  it  is  true  that  we  are  the  reci])ients  in  our  own  State  of  many 
civil  rights  and  of  a  very  large  degree  of  civil  e(iuality.  It  is  true  that  as  respects 
property  rights,  and  as  respects  iiulustrial  rights,  the  women  of  my  own  State  may 
perhaps  be  the  envy  of  all  other  wonuni  in  the  land,  l)ut,  gentlemen,  you  have  always 
told  men  that  the  greater  their  rights  and  the  more  numerous  their  ])rivileges  the 
greater  their  responsibilities.  That  is  equally  true  of  woman,  and  simply  because  our 
property  rights  are  enlarged,  because  our  industrial  field  is  enlarged,  because  we  have 
more  women  who  are  producers  in  the  industrial  world,  recognized  as  such,  who  own 
property  in  their  own  nanu'S,  and  consequently  pay  taxes  upon  that  proi)erty,  and 
thereby  have  greater  linancial  and  larger  social,  as  well  as  industrial  and  business  in- 
terests at  stake  in  our  own  conmionwealth,  and  in  the  manner  in  which  the  adminis- 
tration of  national  affairs  is  conducted — because  of  all  of  these  privileges  we  the  more 
need  the  power  which  shall  emi)hasize  our  influence  upon  political  actions. 

You  know  that  industrial  and  property  rights  are  in  the  hands  of  the  law-makers 
and  the  executors  of  the  laws.  Therefore,  because  of  our  advanced  position  in  that 
matter  we  the  more  need  the  recognition  of  our  pcditical  e(iuality.  1  say  the  recog- 
nition of  our  political  equality,  because  I  believe  the  equality  lilready  exists.  I  be- 
lieve it  waits  simply  for  your  recognition  ;  that  were  the  Constitution  now  justly  con- 
strued, and  the  word  "  citizens,"  as  used  in  your  Constitution,  justly  applied  it  would 
include  us,  the  women  of  this  country.  So  I  ask  for  the  recognition  of  an  equality 
that  we  already  possess. 

Further,  l)ecause  of  what  we  have  we  ask  for  more.  Because  of  the  duties  that  we 
are  commanded  to  do,  we  ask  for  more.  My  friend  has  said,  and  it  is  true  in  some  re- 
spects, that  men  have  always  kept  us  just  a  little  bidow  them  where  they  could  shower 
upon  us  favors,  and  they  have  alwj'iys  done  that  generously.  So  they  have,  but, 
gentlemen,  has  your  sex  been  more  generous  in  its  favors  to  women  than  Avomenhave 
l)een  generous  towar<l  your  sex  in  their  favors  ?  Neither  one  can  do  without  the  other ; 
neither  can  disj)ens«?  with  the  service  of  the  other;  lu'ither  can  dispense  with  t^'e  rev- 
erence of  the  other,  with  the  aid  of  the  other  in  domestic  life,  in  social  life.  The  men 
of  this  nation  are  rapidly  finding  that  they  cannot  dispense  with  the  service  of  wo- 
men in  business  lift;.  I  know  that  they  are  also  feeling  the  need  of  what  they  call  the 
moral  support  of  wouumi  in  their  public  life,  and  in  their  ])olilical  life. 

I  always  feel  that  it  is  not  for  wonuMi  aione  that  I  appeal.  As  men  have  long  rep- 
r(!sented  me,  or  assumed  to  do  so,  and  as  the  men  of  my  own  family  always  have  done 
so  justly  and  most  chivalrously,  I  feel  that  in  my  ai)peal  for  political  recognition  I 
represent  them  ;  that  I  represent  my  husband  and  my  brother  and  the  interests  of 
the  sex  to  which  they  belong,  for  you,  gentlemen,  by  lifting  the  women  of  the  nation 
into  political  e(iualily  would  simply  jdace  us  where  we  could  lift  you  where  you  never 
yet  have  stood,  ui>on  a  moral  e([uality  with  us.  (ientlon)en,  that  is  true.  You  know 
it  as  well  as  1.  I  do  not  sjx-ak  to  yon  as  individuals;  I  speak  to  you  as  the  re])re- 
senfatives  of  your  sex,  as  I  staml  here  the  re^jresentative  of  mine,  and  never  unfil  we 
are  your  cijAals  politically  will  the  moral  standard  for  men  be  what  it  now  is  for 
w^omen,  and  it  is  none  too  high  Let  it  grow  the  more  elevated  l)y  our  growth  in 
spirituality,  by  every  aspiration  which  we  nu-eive  from  the  God  whence  we  draw  our 
life  and  whence  we  draw  (»ur  impulses  of  life.  Let  our  standard  remain  where  it  is 
and  be  more  elevated.  Yours  must  come  up  to  match  it,  and  never  will  it  until  we 
an;  your  equals  p(ditically.  So  it  is  for  men,  as  well  as  for  women,  that  I  make  my 
a])peal. 

I  know  that  there  are  some  gentlemen  u)H)n  this  committee  who,  when  we  were 
here  two  years  ago,  had  sometliing  to  say  al)out  the  rights  of  the  States  and  of  their 
disinclination  to  interfere  with  the  rights  of  the  States  iji  this  nuittcr.  I  have  great 
symimthy  with  the  genth'ineu  from  theS(Mitii,  who,  I  hope,  do  not  forget  that  they  are 
rejucsenting  tlui  women  of  the  South  in  their  work  here  at  the  national  cajntal.  Al- 
ready some  Xorlhern  States  are  making  rapid  strides  towards  the  enfranchisement  of 
their  women.  The  men  of  souie  oi"  liu-  Northern  States  see  that  they  can  no  longtT 
accomplish  tlu'  purj)oses  ]K)litically  whi<"h  they  desire  to  accoujplish  without  tht^  aid 
of  the  wr)men  of  their  resp(M-tivt?  States.  WjKshington  is  tlu^  thir«l  Territory  that  has 
added  wom»'n  to  its  vot ing force, and  <'ons<'(piently  to  its  political  i)ower  to  its  political 
power  at  the  national  capital,  as  well  as  its  own  cai)ital.  Oregon  will  undoubtedly, 
as  her  re})resentative  will  t«'ll  you  to  <lay,  soon  add  its  women  to  its  voting  force. 
The  men  who  believe  that  each  State  must  be  left  to  do  tliis  for  itself  will  soon  find 
I  hat  tlie  lialance  of  power  b(?tween  North  and  South  is  destroyed,  unless  the  women 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


5 


of  the  South  arc  l)rou<Tht  forwarrt  to  add  to  tlic  political  force  of  the  South  an  the 
Avomcu  of  the  North  arc  being  brouijlit  forw  ard  to  add  to  the  political  force  ot  the 
Nortli. 

This  should  not  b(^  acted  upon  as  a  i>artisan  nu'asure.  "We  do  not  aj)pt^al  to  you  as 
Re]>ublicans  or  as  Democrats.  We  liave  auu)n<^  us  Uepublicans  and  I)eniocrats ;  we 
have  our  jiarty  athliations.  We,  of  course,  were  n'nrt'd  with  our  brothers  under  the 
political  belii'f  and  faith  of  our  fathers,  and  probably  as  much  inliuiniced  by  that 
rearin<if  as  our  brothers  were.  We  shall  j^o  to  streno  thdi  both  the  ]>(ilitical  i»arties, 
neither  one  nor  the  other  the  more,  [jrobably.  So  that  it  is  not  as  a  ])artisan  meaaure  ;  it 
is  as  a  just  measure,  which  is  our  due,  not  because  of  what  we  are,  {gentlemen,  but  be- 
cause of  what  you  are,  and  because  of  what  we  are  throu«rh  you,  of  what  you  shall 
be  throutjh  us;  of  what  we,  men  and  women,  both  are  by  virtue  of  our  herita<^e  and 
our  one  Father,  our  one  mother  eternal,  the  spirit  created  and  i)ro<j;ressive,  that  has 
thus  far  sustained  us,  and  that  will  carry  us  and  you  forward  to  the  action  which  we 
demand  of  you  to  take,  and  to  the  results  which  we  anticipate  will  attend  upon  that 
action. 

REMAKKS  BY  MRS.  HELEN  M.  GOUGAR. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  think  I  will  call  upon  the  other  rei)re8entative  of  the  State  of  In- 
diana to  speak  now,  Mrs.  Helen  M.  Gou<rar,  of  Lafayette,  Ind. 

Mrs.  Goi'dAK.  Gentlemen,  we  are  here  on  behalf  of  the  women  citizens  of  this  Re- 
public, askin<x  for  political  freedom.  I  maintain  that  there  is  no  political  (juestion 
paramount  to  that  of  woman  suffrage  before  the  ]>eople  of  America  to-day.  Poli- 
tical jiarties  would  fain  have  ns  believe  that  taritf  is  the  "jreat  (juestion  of  the 
hour.  Political  parties  know  better.  It  is  an  insult  to  the  intelligence  of  the  present 
hour  to  say  that  when  one-half  the  citizens  of  this  Republic  are  denied  a  direct  voice 
in  making  the  laws  under  which  they  shall  live  that  taritf,  or  that  the  civil  rights  of 
the  negro,  or  any  other  question  that  can  be  brought  no  is  ecjualto  the  one  of  giving 
political  freedom  to  women.  So  I  come  to  ask  you,  as  representative  men,  nuiking 
laws  to  govern  the  women  the  same  as  the  men  of  this  country  (and  there  is  not  a  law 
that  you  make  in  the  United  States  Congress  in  which  woman  has  not  an  equal  in- 
terest with  man),  to  take  the  word  ''male"  out  of  the  constitutions  of  the  United 
States  and  the  several  States,  as  you  have  taken  the  word  ''white"  out,  and  give  to 
us  women  a  voice  in  the  laws  under  which  we  live. 

You  ask  me  why  I  am  inclined  to  be  practical  in  my  view  of  this  question.  In  the 
first  ])lace,  s])eaking  from  my  own  stan<l-point,  I  ask  you  to  let  me  have  a  voice  in  the 
laws  under  which  I  shall  live  because  the  older  empires  of  the  earth  are  sending  in 
upon  our  American  shores  a  population  drawn  very  largely  fro'u  the  asylums,  yes, 
from  the  penitentiaries,  the  jails,  and  the  poor-houses  of  the  old  world.  They  are 
emptying  those  men  upon  our  shores,  and  within  a  few  months  they  are  intrusted 
"With  the  ballot,  the  law-making  power  in  this  Republic,  and  they  and  their  repre- 
sentatives are  seated  in  ofhcial  and  legislative  positions.  I,  as  an  American-born 
woman,  to-day  enter  my  protest  at  being  compelled  to  live  under  laws  made  by  this 
class  of  men  very  largely,  and  myself  being  rendered  utterly  incapable  of  the  jjrotec- 
tiou  that  can  only  come  from  the  ballot.  While  I  would  not  have  you  take  this  right 
or  privilege  from  those  men  whom  we  invite  to  our  shores,  I  do  ask  you,  in  the  face  of 
this  immense  foreign  immigration,  to  enfranchise  the  tax-paying,  intelligent,  moral, 
native-born  women  of  America. 

Miss  Anthony.  And  foreign  women  too. 

Mrs.  GouGAK.  Miss  Anthony  suggests  an  amendment,  and  I  indorse  it  most  heartily, 
and  foreign  women  too,  because  if  we  let  a  foreign  man  vote  I  say  let  the  foreign 
"wouian  vote.    I  am  in  favor  of  universal  suffrage. 

Gentlemen,  I  ask  this  as  a  matter  of  justice :  I  ask  it  because  it  is  an  insult  to  the 
intelligence  of  the  present  to  draw  the  sex  line  upon  any  right  whatever.  I  know 
there  are  many  objections  urged,  and  I  am  sure  that  you  have  considered  this  (jues- 
tiou;  but  I  only  make  the  demand  from  the  stand-point,  not  of  sex,  but  of  humanity. 

As  a  Northern  woman,  as  a  woman  from  Indiana,  I  know  that  we  have  the  intelli- 
gent, thinkiin;,  cultured,  pure,  patriotic  nu-n  and  wouicn  with  us  We  have  the 
women  who  are  engaged  in  philanthropic  enterprises.  We  have  in  our  own  Stat*- the 
signatures  of  over  5,000  of  the  school  teachers  asking  for  woman's  ballot.  I  ask  you 
if  the  United  States  Government  does  not  need  the  voice  of  those  5,000  educated 
school  teachers  as  much  as  it  needs  the  voice  of  the  240  male  criminals  who  are,  on  an 
average,  sent  out  of  the  penitentiary  of  Indiana  every  year,  who  go  to  the  ballot-box 
upon  every  question  whatever,  and  make  laws  under  which  those  schoolteachers  must 
live,  and  under  which  the  mothers  of  our  State  must  keep  their  homes  and  rear  their 
children  ? 

On  behalf  of  the  mothers  of  this  country  I  demand  that  their  hands  shall  be  loosened 
before  the  ballot-box,  and  that  they  shail  have  the  privilege  of  throwing  the  mother 
heart  into  the  laws  that  shall  follow  their  sons  not  only  to  the  age  of  majority  that 


6 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


only  has  l)ccn  made  lejj;al,  but  is  never  reeo^^nized,  and  m  I  ask  you  to  let  the  mothers 
carry  their  influeiu  e  in  prote(;tin«j;  laws  around  the  fbot-stei»s  ot  those  boys,  even  after 
their  hair  has  turned  ^ray  and  they  have  seats  in  the  United  States  Congress.  I  ask 
you  to  give  theni  the  ])Ower  to  throAv  ])rotecting  laws  around  tliose  boys  to  the  very 
coniiues  (»f  eternity.  This  can  be  done  in  no  indirect  way;  ir  cannot  be  done  by  the 
silent  iniiuence ;  it  cannot  be  done  by  prayer.  While  I  <lo  not  und'>restiinate  tlie  power 
of  i)rayer,  I  say  give  me  my  ballot  on  election  day  that  shall  send  ])ure  men.  g;>od  men, 
inteliigent  men,  statesmen  instead  of  the  modern  ])olitician  into  our  legislative  halls. 
1  would  rather  have  that  ballot  on  election  day  than  the  prayers  of  all  the  disfran- 
chised women  in  the  universe. 

So  I  ask  you  to  loosen  our  hands.  I  ask  yon  to  let  us  join  with  you  in  developing 
tliis  science  of  human  government.  What  is  ])olitics  after  all  but  the  scii'uce  of 
governn'.ent  ?  We  are  interested  in  these  questions,  and  we  are  investigating  them 
already.  We  have  our  opinions.  Kect-ntly  an  able  man  has  said  that  we  have  been 
grandly  developed  physically  and  mentally,  but  as  a  nation  we  are  a  i)olitical  infant. 
So  we  are,  gentlemen;  we  are  to-day  in  America  politically  simply  an  infant.  Why  is 
it?  It  is  because  we  laave  not  recognized  God's  family  plan  m  government — man  and 
woman  together.  He  created  the  male  and  f*  male,  and  gave  them  dominion  together. 
We  have  dominion  in  every  other  interest  in  society,  and  why  shall  we  not  stand 
shoulder  to  shoulder  and  have  dominion  in  the  science  in  government,  in  making  the 
laws  under  which  we  shall  live? 

We  are  taxed  to  sui)port  this  Government — this  immense  Capitol  building  is  built 
largely  from  the  industries  of  the  tax-paying  women  of  this  country — and  yet  we  are 
denied  the  slightest  voice  in  distributing  our  taxes.  Our  forepareuts  did  not  ol)Ject 
to  taxation,  but  they  did  object  to  taxation  without  representation,  and  we,  as  think- 
ing, industrious,  active  American  women,  object  to  taxation  without  representation. 
We  are  willing  to  contribute  our  share  to  the  support  of  this  Government,  as  we  al- 
ways have  done;  but  we  have  a  right  to  ask  for  our  little  yes  and  no  in  tlie  form  of 
the  ballot  so  that  we  shall  have  a  direct  inlluence  in  distributing  the  taxes. 

Genth  inen,  I  am  amenable  to  the  gallows  and  the  penitentiary,  and  it  is  no  more 
than  right  that  I  shall  have  a  voice  in  framing  the  laws  under  Avhich  I  shall  be  re- 
warded or  punishc^d.  Am  I  asking  too  nnich  of  you  a«  representative  men  of  this 
great  Government  when  I  ask  you  to  let  n.-^c  have  a  voice  in  making  the  laws  under 
which  I  shall  be  rewarded  or  puuislied  ?  It  is  written  in  the  law  of  every  State  in 
this  Unn)n  that  a  person  in  the  courts  shall  have  a  jury  of  his  ])eers,  yet  so  long  as 
the  word  "male"  stands  as  it  docs  in  tin;  Constitutions  of  the  United  States  and  the 
States  no  woman  in  any  State  of  this  Union  can  have  a  jury  of  her  peers.  I  protest 
in  the  name  of  justice  against  going  into  the  court-room  and  b<'ing  compelled  to  run 
the  gantlet  of  tlie  gutter  and  of  the  saloon — yes,  even  of  the  police  court  and  of  the 
jail— as  we  are  compelled  to  do  to  select  a  male  jury  to  try  the  interests  of  women, 
whether  relating  to  life,  ])roperty,  or  reputation.  So  long  as  the  word  "  male"  is  in 
our  constitutions  just  so  long  we  caunot  have  a  jury  of  our  peers  in  any  State  in  the 
Union. 

I  ask  that  the  women  shall  have  the  right  of  the  ballot  that  they  may  go  into  our 
legislative  halls  and  there;  provide  for  the  prevention  rather  thau  the  cure  of  crime. 
I  ask  you  on  behalf  of  the  twelv<!  hundred  children  under  twelve  years  of  age,  who 
are  in  the  poor-houses  of  Indiana,  of  the  sixteen  hundred  in  the  ])»)or-houses  of  Illi- 
nois, and  on  that  average  in  every  State  in  the  Union,  that  you  shall  take  the  word 
"male"  out  of  the  constitutions  and  allow  the  women  of  this  country  to  sit  in  legis- 
lative halls  and  ]>rovide  homes  for  and  look  after  the  little  waifs  of  society.  There 
are  hundreds  of  moral  (juestions  to-day  rciiuiring  the  assistance  of  the  moral  element 
of  womanhood  to  liel])  makethe  laws  under  which  we  shall  live. 

Gentlemen,  the  ])olitical  ])arty  that  lives  in  the  future  must  light  the  moral  battles 
of  humanity.  The  day  of  blood  is  passed  ;  the  <iay  of  brain  and  heart  is  upon  us  ;  and 
I  ask  .you  to  let  the  moral  constituency  that  resides  in  woman's  nature  be  represented. 
Let  nie  say  right  here  that  I  <lo  not  belit»ve  that  there  is  morality  in  sex,  but  the 
social  customs  have  becMi  such  that  woman  has  been  liehl  to  a  higher  slandartl.  May 
the  day  hasten  when  tlie  social  custom  shall  hold  man  to  as  high  a  moral  standard  as 
it  to-day  holds  woman. 

This  is  the  condition  of  things.  The  jiolilical  i)arty'that  presumes  to  light  the 
moral  battles  of  the  future  must  have  the  woukmi  in  its  ranks.  We  are  non-])artisan, 
as  has  been  wvU  sjiid  by  my  friend  from  Imliana  (Mrs.  Sewall).  We  comi' Democrats, 
Kepublirans,  ami  (Jreenbackers,  and  I  expect  ifth<>re  were  half  a  d(»zen  other  jxditical 
parti«'ssome  of  us  would  belong  to  them.  W«'  ask  this  bendiceut  action  upon  your 
])art,  b(>cause  w<^  l)eli(^ve  that  the  intellig<Mice  a  ^l  the  justice  of  the  hour  is  demand- 
ing it.  We  d()  not  want  a  jjolilical  party  action.  Wt;  want  you  tokeei)this  (juestion 
out  of  the  can  vans,  W»'  ask  you  in  the  name  of  justice  and  humanity  alone,  and  not 
on  the  part  of  i)arty. 

I  hold  in  my  haml  a  pc^tition  sent  from  one  district  in  the  State  of  Illinois  with  the 
re<iu<'Ht  that  i  bc.ii-  it  to  you.    Out  of  tluee  huudied  electors  the  names  of  two  huu- 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


7 


dred  stand  in  this  petition  that  I  shall  leave  in  your  hands.  In  this  list  stand  nottho 
wife-whippers,  not  the  drunkards,  not  the  dissolnte,  hnt  every  minister  in  that  town, 
every  editor  in  that  town,  eveiy  ])rot\'ssion;il  man  in  that  town,  every  banker,  and 
every  prominent  Imsiness  man  in  that  town  of  three  hundred  electors.  I  helievethat 
petitions  could  be  r(dled  n]>  in  this  Avay  in  every  town  in  the  Northern  and  in  many 
of  the  Southern  States.    I  leave  this  petition  with  yon  for  your  coiisifU-ration. 

l^pou  no  (piestion  whatever  has  such  a  lar<jje  number  of  petitions  been  sent  as  upon 
this  <leniand  for  woman  sutiVaj^e.  You  have  the  petitions  iu  your  hands,  and  I  ask  you 
in  the  name  of  justice  and  hun)anity  not  to  let  this  Conj;ress  adjourn  without  action. 

Yon  ask  us  if  we  are  imi)atient.  Yes;  we  are  impatient.  Some  of  us  nuiy  die.  and 
I  want  our  jjrand  old  standard-hearer,  Susan  B.  Anthony,  whose  nanu;  will  fjo  down 
to  history  beside  that  of  (Jeorge  Washinj^ton,  Abraliam  Lincoln,  and  Wendell  Phil- 
lips—I  want  that  woman  to  <50  to  Heaven  a  free  anj^el  from  this  Kepnidic.  The  power 
lies  in  your  hands  to  make  us  all  free.  May  tln^  blessing  of  (iod  be  upon  tin?  heartsof 
every  one  of  you,  ojentlenien  ;  may  the  scales  of  i)r('judice  fall  from  your  eyes,  aiul  may 
you,  representin«>-  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  have  the  ;^rand  honor  of  telegraph- 
ing to  us,  to  the  millions  of  waiting  women  from  one  end  of  this  country  to  the  other, 
that  the  sixteenth  amendment  has  been  submitted  to  the  ratification  of  the  several 
legislatures  of  our  States  striking  the  word  "  male  "  out  of  the  constitutions  ;  and  that 
this  shall  be,  as  we  promise  it  to  be,  a  Government  of  the  people,  for  the  people,  and 
by  the  i)eople. 

KEMAKKS  BY  MRS.  ABIGAIL  SCOTT  DUXIWAY. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  now,  gentlemen  of  the  committee,  introduce  to  you  Mrs.  Abigail 
Scott  Duniway,  from  the  extreme  Northwest;  and  before  she  speaks,  I  wish  to  say 
that  she  has  been  the  one  canvasser  in  the  great  State  of  Oregon  and  Washington 
Territory,  and  that  it  is  to  Mrs.  Duniway  that  the  women  of  Washington  Territory 
are  niore  in»lebted  than  to  all  other  intluences  for  their  enfranchisement. 

Mrs.  Duniway.  Gentlemen  of  the  committee,  do  you  think  it  possible  that  an  agi- 
tation liki'  this  can  go  on  and  on  forever  without  a  victory  ?  Do  you  nor  see  that  the 
golden  moni  'ut  has  come  for  this  grand  committee  to  achieve  immortality  upon  the 
grandest  idea  that  has  ever  stirred  the  heart-beats  of  American  citizens,  and  will  you 
not  in  the  magnanimity  of  nol)le  purposes  rise  to  meet  the  situation  and  accede  to  our 
demand,  which  in  your  hearts  you  must  know  is  just '! 

I  do  not  come  before  you,  gentlemen,  with  the  expectation  to  instruct  you  in  regard 
to  the  laws  of  our  country.  The  women  around  us  are  law-abiding  women.  They 
are  the  mothers,  many  of  them,  of  true  and  nobh;  men,  the  wives,  many  of  them,  of 
grand,  free  husbands,  who  are  listening,  watching,  waiting  eagerly  for  successful 
tidings  of  this  great  experiment. 

There  never  was  a  grander  theory  of  government  than  that  of  these  L^nited  States. 
Never  were  grander  priucii)les  «Miunciated  upon  any  platform,  never  so  grand  before 
and  never  can  be  grander  again,  than  the  declaration  that  all  men,"  including  of 
course  all  women,  since  wonien  are  amenable  to  the  laws,  "  are  created  equal ;  that 
they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights  *  *  *  that 
to  secure  these;  rights  governments  are  instituted  among  men,  deriving  their  just 
powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed." 

Gentlemen,  are  we  allowed  the  opportunity  of  consent  ?  These  women  who  are  here 
from  Maine  to  Oregon,  from  the  Straits  of  Fuca  to  the  reefs  of  Florida,  wlio,  iu  their 
representative  capacity,  have  come  up  here  so  often,  augmented  in  their  numbers  year 
by  year,  looking  with  (\ves  of  ho])e  and  hearts  of  laith,  but  oftentimes  with  hopes  de- 
ferred u])on  the  linal  solution  of  this  great  problem,  wlii(  h  it  is  so  mu<  h  in  your  hands 
to  hasten  in  its  solution — these  women  are  in  earnest.  My  State  is  far  away  beyond 
the  continesof  the  Rocky  Mountains,  away  over  beside  the  singing  Pacific  sea,  but  the 
spirit  of  liberty  is  among  us  there,  and  the  public  heart  has  been  stirred.  The  hearts 
of  our  men  have  been  moved  to  listen  to  our  demands,  and  in  Washingtou  Territory, 
as  one  speaker  has  informed  you,  women  to-day  are  endowed  with  full  ami  free  enfran- 
chisement, and  the  rejoicing  throughout  that  Territory  is  universal. 

In  Oregon  men  have  also  listened  to  our  demand,  and  tiie  legislature  has  in  two  suc- 
cessive sessions  agreed  upon  a  proposition  to  amend  our  State  constit ution,  a  ])ropo8i- 
tion  which  will  be  submitted  for  ratification  to  our  voters  at  the  coming  June  election. 
It  is  sim]>ly  a  ])ro])osition  declaring  that  the  right  of  sutirage  shall  not  hereafter  bo 
prohibited  in  the  State  of  Oregon  on  account  of  sex.  Your  action  in  the  Senat«'of  the 
United  States  will  greatly  determine  the  action  of  the  voters  <.f  Oregon  on  our,  or 
rather  on  their,  election  day,  for  we  stand  before  the  public  in  the  am)m:ily  of  peti- 
tioners upon  a  great  question  in  which  we  in  its  tinal  decision  are  ailowt'd  no  voice, 
and  we  can  only  stand  with  expectant  hearts  and  almost  bated  breath  awaiting  the 
action  of  men  who  are  to  make  this  decision. 

We  have  great  hope  for  our  victory,  because  the  men  of  the  broad  free  West  are 
grand,  and  chivalrous,  and  free.    They  have  gone  across  the  mighty  continent  with 


8 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


free  steps;  tln'v  have  raised  the  standard  of  a  new  Pacilic  empire;  they  have  imbibed 
tlie  spirit  of  liberty  with  tlieir  very  breatli,  and  they  have  listened  to  ns  far  in  ad- 
vance of  many  of  the  men  of  the  older  States  who  have  not  had  their  opportunity 
amon^  the  jjjrand  tree  wilds  of  nature  for  expansion. 

So  all  olOur  leaders  are  with  ns  to-day.  Yon  may  <?o  to  either  member  of  the  Sen- 
ate of  the  United  States  from  Ore<^on,  and  wliile  I  cannot  speak  so  j)ositively  for  the 
senior  member,  as  he  came  over  liere  some  years  a<;()  Itefore  the  ])nblic  were  so  well 
educated  as  now,  I  can  and  do  i)rondly  vouch  lor  the  late  Senator-elect  l)oli)h,  who  now 
has  a  sent  ujton  the  lloor  of  the  Senate,  who  is,  lieart  and  soul  and  hand  and  ])urse,  in 
sympathy  with  this  j;reat  movement  for  the  enfranchisement  of  the  women  of  Oregon. 
I  would  also  be  unjust  to  our  worthy  Representative  in  the  lower  House,  Hon.  M.  C. 
George,  did  I  not  ])roudly  speak  his  name  in  this  great  connection.  Men  of  this  class 
are  with  us,  and  without  regard  to  i)arty  alhliations  we  know  that  they  are  upon  our 
side.  Our  governor,  our  associate  supn.'me  j  udge  for  the  district  of  the  I'acitic,  all  of 
these  men,  are  leading  in  the  grand  tree  way  that  characterizes  the  men  of  the  West 
in  assisting  in  this  work.  But  we  have— alas,  that  I  should  be  compelled  to  say  it — a 
great  many  men  who  pay  no  heed  whatever  to  this  question.  Men  will  be  entitled  to 
a  voice  in  this  decision  who  are  not,  like  members  of  Congress,  the  ])icked  men  of  the 
nation  or  the  State,  bnt  men,  many  of  wliom  cannot  read,  who  will  have  an  o})por- 
tnnity  to  decide  this  tinestion  as  far  as  their  ballots  can  go.  These  are  they  to  whom 
the  enlightened,  educated  motherhood  of  the  State  of  Oregon  must  look  largely  for 
the  decision. 

This  brings  me  to  the  grand  point  of  our  coming  to  Congress.  Some  of  you  say  to 
ns,  "Why  not  leave  this  matter  for  settlement  in  the  different  States?"  When 
we  leave  it  for  settlement  in  the  different  States  we  leave  it  just  as  I  have  told  you, 
because  of  the  constitutional  provisions  of  our  organic  law  we  cannot  do  otnerwise ; 
but  if  the  ([uestion  were  to  be  settled  by  the  legislature  of  Oregon  alone  it  would  be 
settled  now  ;  and  I,  as  a  representative  of  that.  State  only,  would  have  no  need  of 
coming  here  ;  it  would  be  settled  just  as  it  has  been  settled  in  Washington  Territory  ; 
bnt  when  we  come  here  to  Congress  it  is  the  great  nation  asking  you  to  take  such 
legislative  aciton  in  submitting  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  as  shall  recognize  the  equality  of  these  women  who  are  here ;  these  women 
who  have  come  here  from  all  parts  of  the  cfnintry,  whose  constituents  are  looking  on 
while  we  are  here  before  yon.  As  we  reflect  that  our  feeblest  words  littered  before 
this  committee  will  go  to  the  confines  of  this  nation  and  be  cabled  across  the  great 
Atlantic  and  around  the  globe,  we  realize  that  more  and  more  i)rominently  our  cause 
is  growing  into  public  favor,  and  the  time  is  just  upon  us  when  some  decision  must 
be  made. 

Gentlemen  of  the  committee,  will  you  not  recognize  the  importance  of  the  move- 
ment ?  Who  among  you  will  be  our  standard-bearer?  Who  among  you  will  achieve 
immortality  by  standing  up  in  these  halls  in  which  we  are  forbidden  to  speak,  and  in 
the  magnanimity  of  your  own  free  wills  and  noble  hearts  champion  the  woman's 
cause  and  make  us  before  the  law,  as  we  of  right  ought  now  to  be,  free  and  inde- 
pendent ? 

REMARKS  BY  MRS.  CAROLINE  GILKEY  ROGERS. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  now  call  ni)oii  Mrs.  Caroline  Gilkey  Rogers,  of  Lansingburg,  N. 
Y..  to  address  the  committee. 

Mrs.  RoGKHS.  Mr.  Chairma  and  gentlemen  of  the  committee,  in  our  efforts  to  se- 
cnri!  the  right  of  citizenshi])  w  appeal  only  to  your  sense  of  justice  and  love  of  fair 
dealing. 

We  ask  for  the  ballot  because  it  is  the  syml>ol  of  equality.  There  is  no  other  rec- 
ognized symbol  of  e<inality  in  this  country.  We  ask  for  the  ballot  that  we  may  be 
C([ual  to  man  befon^  the  law.  We  urge  a  two-lold  right — our  right  to  the  republic, 
the  rei>ul)lic's  right  to  ns.  We  believe  the  interests  of  the  country  are  identical  with 
the  interests  of  all  its  citizens,  including  women,  ami  that  the  (Jovernment  can  no 
long(!r  afford  to  slink  women  out  from  the  affairs  of  the  State  and  nation,  and  wise 
nu'ii  are  beginning  to  know  thai'  they  are  needed  in  the  GovernmenI  ;  that  they  are 
needed  wher(!  our  laws  are  nuub'  as  well  as  where  tlu'y  are  violated. 

Many  admit  the  justic<M)f  our  claim,  but  will  say,  Is' it  safe?  Is  it  expedient? 
It  is  always  safe  to  do  right;  it  is  always  expedient  to  be  just.  Justice  can  never 
luing  evil  in  its  train. 

The  <iu<'stion  is  asked  how  and  what  would  the  women  do  in  the  State  and  nation  ? 
We  <lo  not  ple<lge  ourselves  to  anything.  I  claim  that  we  cannot  have  a  better  gov- 
ernment tlian  lhat  of  the  j)eople.  The  i)re.seut  (Jovernment  is  of  only  a  part  of  the 
]»eoi»le.  We  have  not  yet  i'utered  ui)on  the  system  of  higher  arbitration,  because  the 
('ox  eriiment  is  of  man  only.  If  W(>  had  been  marching  along  with  you  all  this  time  I 
trust  we  should  Imve  readied  a  higher  plane  of  ci vilizat  u>n. 

We  believe  that  all  the  virt  ue  of  the  W(uld  can  take  care  of  all  the  evil,  and  all  the 
intelligence  can  take  care  of  all  the  ignorance.  l..et  us  have  all  the  virtue  confront 
all  the  vice. 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


9 


Theiv  is  no  noed  to  do  battle  in  tliis  matter.  In  all  kindness  and  gentleness  we  nrge 
our  claims.  There  is  no  need  to  declare  war  upon  men  for  the  best  of  men  in  this 
country  are  with  us  heart  and  soul. 

It  is  a  common  remark  that  unless  sonu."  new  element  is  infused  into  our  jiolitical 
life  our  nation  is  doomed  to  destruction.  What  more  tittiug  element  than  the  noble 
tj'pe  of  American  womanhood,  who  have  taught  our  Presidents,  Senators,  and  Con- 
gressmen tlu'  rndiments  of  all  they  know. 

Think  of  all  the  foreigners  and  all  our  own  native-born  ignorant  men  who  cannot 
write  their  own  nauu's  or  read  the  Declaration  of  Independence  making  laws  for 
such  women  as  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton  and  Susan  B.  Anthony.  Think  of  jurors 
drawn  from  these  ranks  to  watch  and  try  young  girls  for  crimes  often  committed 
against  them  when  the  male  criminal  goes  free.  Think  of  a  single  one  of  these  votes 
on  election  day  outweighing  all  the  women  in  the  country.  Is  it  not  humiliating  for 
me  to  sit,  a  i)oiiltical  cii)her,  and  see  the  colored  man  in  my  employ,  to  whom  1  have 
taught  the  alphabet,  go  out  on  election  day  and  say  by  his  vote  what  shall  be  done 
with  my  tax  money.    How  would  you  like  it  ? 

When  we  think  of  the  wives  trampled  on  by  husbands  whom  the  law  has  taught 
them  to  regard  as  inferior  beings,  and  of  the  mothers  whose  children  are  torn  from 
their  arms  by  the  direct  behest  of  the  law  at  the  bidding  of  a  dead  or  living  father, 
when  we  think  of  these  things,  our  hearts  ache  with  i)ity  and  indignation. 

If  mothers  could  only  realize  how  the  laws  which  they  have  no  voice  in  making 
and  no  power  to  change  atlects  them  at  every  point,  how  they  enter  every  door, 
whether  palace  or  hovel,  touch,  limit,  and  bind,  every  article  and  inmate  from  the 
smallest  chihl  up,  no  woman,  however  shrinking  and  delicate,  can  escape  it,  they  would 

fet  beyond  the  meaningless  cry,  "I  have  all  the  rights  I  want."  Do  these  women 
now  that  in  most  States  of  the  Union  the  shameful  fact  that  no  woman  has  any  legal 
right  to  her  own  child,  excei)t  it  is  born  out  of  wedlock!  In  these  States  there  is  not 
a  line  of  ])ositive  law  to  protect  the  mother;  the  father  is  the  legal  protector  and 
guardian  of  the  children. 

Under  the  laws  of  most  of  the  States  to-day  a  husband  may  by  his  last  will  bequeath 
his  child  away  from  its  mother,  so  that  she  might,  if  the  guardian  chose,  never  see  it 
again. 

The  husband  nuiy  have  been  a  very  bad  man,  and  in  a  moment  of  anger  made  the 
will.  The  guardian  he  has  appointed  nuiy  turn  out  a  malicious  man,  and  take  pleasure 
in  tormenting  the  mother,  or  he  may  bring  up  the  children  in  a  way  that  the  mother 
thinks  ruinous  to  them,  and  she  has  no  redress  in  law.  Why  do  not  all  the  fortunate 
mothers  in  the  laud  cry  out  against  such  a  law?  Why  do  not  all  women  say,  "Inas- 
much as  the  law  has  done  this  wrong  unto  the  least  of  these  my  sisters  it  has  done  it 
unto  It  is  true  that  men  are  alnu)st  always  better  than  their  laws,  but  while  a 

bad  law  remains  on  the  statute  books  it  gives  to  any  unscrupulous  man  a  right  to  be 
as  bad  as  the  law. 

It  is  often  said  to  us  when  all  the  women  ask  for  the  ballot  it  will  be  granted.  Did 
all  the  married  women  petition  the  legislatures  of  their  States  to  secure  to  them  the 
right  to  hold  in  their  own  name  the  property  that  belonged  to  them  ?  To  secure  to 
the  ])oor  forsaken  wife  the  right  to  her  earnings  .' 

All  the  women  did  not  ask  for  these  rights,  but  all  accepted  them  with  joy  and  glad- 
ness when  they  were  obtained,  and  so  it  will  be  with  the  franchise.  But  wonian's 
rights  to  self-government  does  not  depend  u})on  the  numbers  that  demand  it,  but  upon 
precisely  the  same  principles  that  man  claims  it  for  himself. 

Where  did  man  get  the  authority  that  he  now  claims  to  govern  one-half  of  hunuinity, 
from  what  power  the  right  to  place  woman,  his  hel])meet  in  life,  in  an  inferior  i)osition  ? 
Came  it  from  nature?  Nature  made  woman  his  su]^erior  when  she  made  her  his 
mother — his  equal  when  she  lifted  her  to  hold  the  sacred  position  of  wife.  Did 
woman  meet  in  council  and  voluntarily  give  up  all  their  claim  to  be  their  own  law- 
makers ? 

The  power  of  the  strong  over  the  weak  makes  man  the  master.  Yes,  then,  and  then 
only,  does  he  gain  the  authority. 

It  is  all  very  well  to  say  "Convert  the  women."  While  we  most  heartily  wish 
they  could  all  feel  as  we  do,  yet  when  it  comes  to  the  decision  of  this  gr»'ar  (juestion 
they  are  mere  ciphers,  for  if  this  question  is  settled  by  the  States  it  will  be  left  to 
the  voters,  not  to  the  women  to  decide.  Or  if  suffrage  comes  to  women  through  a 
sixteenth  amendment  to  the  national  Constitution,  it  will  be  decided  by  legislatures 
elected  by  men.  In  neither  case  will  women  have  an  oi)i»ortuuity  of  ])assing  upon 
the  question.  So  reason  tells  us  we  must  devote  our  best  efforts  to  converting  those 
to  whom  we  must  look  for  the  removal  of  our  disabilities,  which  now  prevent  our  ex- 
ercising the  right  of  suffrage. 

The  arguments  in  favor  of  the  enfianchisenumt  of  women  are  triiths  strong  and  un- 
answerable, and  as  old  as  the  free  institutions  of  our  (iovernnu'Ut.  The  priiu  iple  of 
"  taxation  without  representation  is  tyranny,"  applies  to  women  as  well  s\s  men,  an<l 
is  as  true  to-day  as  it  was  a  hundred  years  ago. 


10 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


» 


Our  (loniand  for  the  ballot  is  the  great  onward  stop  of  the  century,  and  not,  as  some 
claim, the  idiosyncracies  of  a  few  unbalanced  minds. 

Every  argnment  that  has  been  urgtMl  against  this  (piestion  of  woman's  sutfrage  has 
been  urged  against  every  reform.  Yet  the  reforms  liave  fought  their  way  onward  and 
became  a  part  of  the  glorious  history  of  hun)anity. 

So  it  will  be  with  sutfrage.  "  You  can  stop  the  crowing  of  the  cock,  but  you  can- 
not stop  the  dawn  of  the  morning."  And  now,  gentlemen,  you  are  responsible,  not 
for  the  laws  yon  find  on  the  statute  books,  but  for  those  you  leave  there. 

REMARKS  BY  MRS.  MARY  SEYMOI  R  HOWELL. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  now  introduce  to  the  committee  Mrs.  Mary  Seymour  Howell,  the 
president  of  the  Albany.  N.  Y.,  State  society. 

Mrs.  Howell.  Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen  of  the  committee:  Miss  Anthony  gives 
me  tive  minutes.  I  shall  have  to  talk  very  rapidly.  I  ask  you  for  the  ballot  because 
of  the  v«'ry  tirst  princi]>le  that  is  often  repeated  to  you,  that  ''taxation  without  rep- 
resentation is  tyranny."  I  come  froin  the  city  of  Albany,  where  many  of  my  sisters 
are  taxed  for  millions  of  dollars.  Theie  are  three  or  four  women  in  the  city  of  Albany 
who  are  worth  their  millions,  and  yet  they  have  no  voice  in  the  laws  that  govern  and 
control  them.  One  of  our  great  State  senators  has  said  that  you  cannot  argue  live 
minutes  against  Avoman  suffrage  without  repudiating  every  principle  that  this  great 
Republic  is  founded  upon. 

I  ask  you  also  for  the  ballot  for  the  large  class  of  women  who  are  not  taxe<l.  They 
need  it  more  than  the  women  who  are  taxed.  I  have  found  in  every  work  that  I  have 
conducted  that  because  I  am  a  woman  I  am  not  paid  for  that  work  as  a  man  is  paid 
for  similar  work. 

You  have  heard,  and  perhaps  some  of  you  are  thinking — I  ho])e  not — that  women 
should  be  at  home.  I  wish  to  say  to  you  that  there  are  millions  of  women  in  the 
United  States  who  have  no  homes.  There  are  millions  of  women  who  are  trying  to 
earn  their  bread  and  hold  their  purity  sacred.  For  that  class  of  women  I  ap]>eal  to 
you.  In  the  city  of  Albany  there  are  hundreds  of  women  in  our  fa(;tories  making  the 
shirts  that  you  can  buy  for  $L50  and  S2,  and  all  those  women  are  ])ai(l  for  making  the 
shirts  is  four  cents  apiece.  There  are  in  the  State  of  New  York  18,000  teachers. 
When  I  was  a  teacher  and  taught  with  gentlemen  in  our  academies,  I  received  al)out 
one-fourth  of  the  pay  because  I  happened  to  be  a  woman.  I  consider  it  an  insult  that 
forever  burns  in  my  sonl,  that  I  am  to  be  handed  a  mere  pittance  in  comi)arisjon  with 
Avhat  man  receives  for  same  quality  of  work.  When  I  was  sent  out  by  our  superin- 
tendent of  public  instruction  to  hold  conventions  of  teachers,  as  I  have  often  done  in 
our  State  of  New  York,  and  when  I  did  one-third  more  work  than  the  men  teachers  so 
sent  out,  but  because  I  was  a  woman  and  had  not  the  ballot  I  was  only  paid  about 
half  as  much  as  the  man;  and  saying  that  once  to  our  su]>erintendent  of  public  in- 
struction in  Albany  he  said,  "Mrs.  Howell,  just  as  soon  as  you  get  the  ballot  and  have 
a  political  intluence  in  the  work  you  will  have  the  sam*^  pay  as  a  man." 

We  ask  for  the  ballot  for  that  great  army  of  fallen  women  who  walk  our  streetsand 
who  break  up  our  homes  and  ruin  our  husbands  and  our  dear  boys.  W«'  ask  it  for 
those  women.  The  ballot  will  lift  tluMU  u]i.  Hundreds  an«l  thousands  of  wonuMi  give 
up  their  ])nrity  for  the  sak<'  of  starving  children  and  families.  There  is  many  a  wo- 
nuiu  who  goes  to  a  life  of  (U'gradation  and  ])ollntion  shedding  burning  tears  over  her 
4-cent  shirts 

We  ask  for  the  ballot  for  the  good  of  the  ravo.  Huxley  says,  admitting  for  the 
sake  of  argument  that  woman  is  the  weaker,  mentally,  and  ])hysically,  for  that  very 
reason  she  should  have  the  ballot  and  should  have  every  help  tliat  the  world  can  give 
h<>r."  When  you  <lebar  from  your  councils  and  legislative  halls  the  purity,  the  spir- 
ituality, and  th(^  love  of  woman  vhen  those  legislative  halls  and  those  conncils  are  apt 
to  ])ec()nu;  coarse  and  hriital.  (Jod  gave  us  to  you  to  help  yon  in  this  litt  le  journey  to 
a  better  laud,  and  by  our  love  and  our  intellect  to  help  to  make  our  country  pure  and 
noble,  an<l  if  you  would  have  statesmen  you  must  have  statrKiromen  to  l)ear  them. 

I  ask  you  also  for  the  ballot  that  I  may  decide  what  I  am.  I  stand  before  you,  but 
I  do  not  know  to-day  whetln'r  I  am  legally  a  "person  "  according  to  the  law.  It  has 
])een  decided  in  sonu' St.ites  that  we  are  not  "  jiersons."  'In  the  State  of  New  Y(uk,  in 
one  village  it  was  decided  that  women  are  not  inhabitants.  S(»  I  should  like  to  know 
whether  I  am  a  ])erson.  whether  I  am  an  inhabitant,  and  above  all  I  ask  you  for  the 
ballot  that  I  nuiy  become  a  citizen  of  this  great  I\e])ublie. 

(jlentlemcn,  you  s«m>  before  you  this  great  con  vent  ion  of  women  from  the  Atlantic 
slopes  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  from  the  North  to  the  South.  We  are  in  d(>:Ml  earnest.  A 
reform  never  goes  backward.  This  is  a  (lucstion  that  is  b«'fore  the  Ann'rican  nation. 
Will  you  do  your  duty  and  give  us  our  liberty,  or  will  yon  leav«>  it  for  braver  hearts 
to  do  what  nuKst  be  done  f  For,  like  our  forefathers,  we  will  ask  until  we  have 
gained  it. 

Kver  tlir  worUl  ^ocs  round  and  round  : 

Ever  the  truth  conie.s  upiu-rmost ;  and  over  is  justirt^  done. 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


11 


REMARKS  BY  MRS.  LILLIE  DEVEREUX  BLAKE. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  now  have  thp])loasuro  ofintrodnciii'jf  to  the  coininittee  Mrs.  EilHo 
Devereux  lilake,  of  Now  York.  New  York  is  a  j^rcat  State,  ami  therefore  it  has  three 
rei)reseiitatives  here  to-chvy. 

Mrs.  Blake.  Mr.  Chainiian  and  <;entlenien  of  tlie  coniniittee  :  A  recent  writer  in  an 
English  magazine,  in  s})eaking  of  the  great  a(lvanta<?e  which  to-day  Hows  to  the  hihor- 
ing  chisses  of  that  nation  from  having  received  the  right  of  snffrage,  made  the  state- 
ment that  disfranchised  classes  are  oi)i)ressed,  not  becanse  tlu're  is  any  desire  what- 
ever to  do  injnslice  to  them,  bnt  becanse  they  are  forgotten.  We  have  year  alter  year 
and  session  atter  session  of  oiir  h>gishitnres  and  of  onr  Congresses  })roved  the  correct- 
ness of  this  statement.  While  we  have  nothing  to  complain  of  in  tin;  courtesy  which 
we  receive  in  i)ri  vate  life  ;  still  when  we  st'e  masses  of  men  assemble  togct  licr  for  i)()liti- 
cal  action,  whether  it  be  of  the  nation  or  of  the  State,  we  find  that  thi^  women  are 
totally  forgotten. 

In  the  limited  time  that  is  mine  I  cannot  go  into  any  lengthy  exposition  npon  this 
point.  I  will  simjdy  call  yonr  attention  to  the  total  forget  fn  In  ess  of  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States  to  the  debt  owed  to  the  women  of  this  nation  during  the  war.  You 
have  passed  a  pension  bill  ui>on  which  there  has  betMi  much  connnent  throughout  the 
nation,  and  yet,  when  an  old  army  nurse  a])plies  for  a  p«uision,  a  woman  who  is  broken 
down  by  her  devotion  to  the  nation  in  hospitals  and  upon  the  battle-lield,  she  is  met 
at  the  door  of  the  Pension  Bureau  by  tliis  statement,  "  the  Government  has  made  no 
appropriation  for  the  services  of  women  in  the  war."  One  of  these  women  is  an  old 
nurse,  whom  some  of  you  may  remember.  Mother  Bickerdyke,  \v\ro  went  out  on  to  many 
a  battle-tield,  when  she  was  in  the  prime  of  life,  twenty  years  ago,  and  at  the  risk  of 
her  life  lifted  men  who  were  wounded,  in  her  arms,  and  carried  them  to  a  place  of  safe- 
ty. She  is  an  old  woman  now,  and  where  is  she  ?  What  reward  has  the  nation  be- 
stowed to  her  faithful  services  ?  The  nation  has  a  pension  for  every  man  who  has 
served  this  nation,  even  down  to  the  boy  recruit  who  was  out  but  three  months  ;  but 
Mother  Bickerdyke,  though  her  health  lias  never  been  good  since  her  service  then,  is 
earning  her  living  at  the  wash-tub,  a  monument  to  the  ingratitude  of  a  Kepnljlic  as 
great  as  was  that  when  Belisarius  begged  in  the  streets  of  Rome. 

I  bring  up  this  illustration  alone  out  of  innumerable  others  that  are  possible,  to  try 
to  impress  upon  your  minds  that  we  are  forgotten.  It  is  not  from  any  unkindiiess  on 
your  ])art.  AVho  would  think  for  one  moment,  looking  upon  the  kindly  faces  of  this 
committee,  that  any  man  on  it  would  do  an  injustice  to  women,  especially  if  sh«;  were 
old  and  feeble,  but  because  we  have  no  right  to  vote,  as  I  said,  our  interests  are  over- 
looked and  forgotten. 

It  is  often  said  that  we  have  too  many  voters ;  that  the  aggregate  of  vice  and  igno- 
rance among  us  should  not  be  increased  by  giving  women  the  light  of  sutfrage.  I 
wish  to  remind  you  of  the  fact  that  in  the  eu(uniou8  immigration  that  pours  to  our 
shores  every  year,  uuml)ering  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood  of  half  a  million,  there 
come  twice  as  many  men  as  women.  Tlie  tigures  for  the  last  year  were  two  hundred 
and  twenty-three  thousand  men  and  one  hundred  and  thirteen  thousand  women. 
What  does  this  mean  ?  It  means  a  steady  influx  of  this  foreign  element ;  it  means  a 
constant  preponderance  of  the  masculine  over  the  feminine  ;  and  it  means  also,  of 
course,  a  preponderance  of  the  voting  iiower  of  the  foreigner  as  compared  to  the 
native  born.  To  those  who  fear  that  our  American  institutions  are  threatened  by 
this  gigantic  inroad  of  foreigners  I  commend  the  rellection  that  the  best  safeguard 
against  any  such  ])rc])on<lerance  of  foreign  nations  or  of  foreign  iulluence  is  to  put 
the  ballot  in  the  hands  of  the  American  born  wonu'u,  and  of  all  other  women  also,  so 
that  if  tlie  tVn-eign  born  man  overbalances  us  in  numi)eis  we  shall  be  always  in  a  pre- 
ponderance on  the  side  of  the  liberty  which  is  secured  by  our  institutions. 

It  is  becanse,  as  many  of  my  predecessors  have  said,  of  the  dilVereut  elements  repre- 
sented by  the  two  sexes,  that  we  are  asking  for  tliis  liberty.  When  I  was  recently  in 
the  capitol  of  my  own  State  of  New  York,  I  was  reminded  there  of  the  dilterence  of 
temperament  between  the  sexes  by  seeing  how  children  act  when  coming  to  the  doors 
of  the  cai)itol  which  have  been  constru(;ted  so  that  they  are  v«M-y  hard  to  open.  Whether 
that  is  because  they  want  to  keep  us  women  out  or  not  I  am  not  able  to  say  :  but  for 
some  reason  the  doors  are  so  constructed  that  it  is  nearly  impossilde  to  open  them. 
I  saw  a  number  of  little  girls  coming  in  through  those  <loors — every  rliild  hehl  the 
door  for  those  who  were  to  follow.  A  number  of  little  boys  followed  just  after,  and 
every  boy  rushed  through  and  let  the  door  shut  in  tli«'  face  of  the  one  who  was  coming 
behind  liim.  That  is  a  good  illustration  of  the  dilVcrent  ([ualities  of  the  sexes.  Those 
boys  were  not  unkind,  they  simidy  repres»Mited  that  onward  push  which  is  one  of  the 
grandest  characteristics  of  your  sex  ;  and,  the  lit t le  girls  on  the  other  haiul.  repre- 
sented that  gentleness  and  thoughtfulness  of  others  which  is  etninently  a  character- 
istic of  women. 

This  woman  element  is  needed  in  every  branch  of  the  (ioveiiiuKMit.  I^ook  at  the 
wholesale  destruction  of  the  forests  throughout  our  nation,  wJiirh  has  gone  on  until 


12 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


it  brin^rs  direct  dcstructiou  to  the,  laiul  on  the  lines  of  the  jjjreat  rivers  of  tlie  West, 
and  threatens  us  even  in  New  York,  with  (U'stroyinj;  at  once  the  beauty  and  the  nse- 
fnhiess  of  our  far-famed  Hudson.  If  wolnen  were  in  tlie  Government  do  you  uot  think 
tlicy  wonhl  jjiotect  the  eeononiic  interests  of  the  nation  ?  They  are  the  born  and 
trained  ('conomis'ts  of  the  worhl,  and  when  you  call  them  to  your  assistaTice  yon  will 
tiud  an  element  that  has  not  heretofore  been  felt  with  the  weii^ht  which  it  (leserves. 

As  we  walk  throu«>h  the  Cai>itol  we  are  struck  with  the  si<;niticance  of  the  symbolism 
on  every  side  ;  we  view  the  adornments  in  the  beautiful  room,  aud  we  tind  liere  every- 
wh(;re  emblematically  woman's  tif^ure.  Here  is  woman  re])resentin<ij  even  war,  and 
there  are  women  re})resentin<;  gi  ace  and  loveliness  and  the  fullness  of  the  harvest :  and, 
above  all,  they  are  extendinj^  their  protecting  arms  over  the  little  children.  Gentle- 
men, I  leave  you  under  this  symbolism,  hoping  that  you  will  see  in  it  the  type  of  a 
connng  (hiy  when  we  shall  have  women  and  men  united  together  in  the  national  coun- 
cils in  this  great  building. 

REMARKS  BY  DR.  CLEMENCE  S.  LOZIER. 

Miss  Antiioxy.  I  meant  to  have  said,  as  I  introduced  Mrs.  Blake,  that  sitting  on  the 
sofa  is  Dr.  Clemence  S.  Lozier,  who  declines  to  speak,  but  I  want  her  to  stand  up,  be- 
cause she  represents  New  York  City. 

Dr.  LoziKR.  I  thank  you.  I  am  very  happy  to  be  here,  but  I  am  not  a  fluent 
speaker,  I  feel  in  my  heart  that  I  know  what  justice  means;  that  I  know  what  mercy 
means,  and  in  all  my  rounds  of  duty  in  my  profession  I  am  happy  to  extend  not  only 
food  but  slndter  to  many  poor  ones.  The  need  of  the  ballot  ior  working  girls  and 
those  who  pay  no  taxes  is  not  understood.  The  Savior  said,  seeing  the  poor  widow 
cast  her  two  mites,  which  make  a  farthing,  into  the  i)ublic  treasury  "  This  poor  widow 
hath  cast  more  in,  than  all  they  which  have  cast  into  the  treasury."  I  see  this  among 
the  poor  working  girls  of  the  city  of  New  York,  sick,  in  a  little  garret  bedroom,  per- 
hai)s,  and  although  needing  medical  care  and  needing  food,  they  will  say  to  me, 
''above  all  things  else,  if  I  could  only  pay  the  rent."  The  rent  of  their  little  rooms 
goes  into  the  cotters  of  their  landlords  and  pays  taxes.  The  poor  women  of  the  city 
of  New  York  aud  everywhere  are  the  grandest  upholders  of  this  Governnunit.  I  be- 
lieve they  pay  indirectly  more  taxes  than  the  monopoly  kings  of  our  country.  It  is 
for  them  that  I  want  the  ballot. 

REMARKS  BY  MRS.  ELIZABETH  BOYNTON  HARBERT. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  now  introduce  to  the  committee  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Boynton  Harbert, 
of  Illinois,  and  before  Mrs.  Harbert  s])eaks  I  wish  to  say  that  for  the  last  six  years 
she  has  edited  a  department  of  the  Chicago  Inter-Ocean  called  the  "Women's  King- 
dom." 

Mrs.  Harbert.  Mr.  Chairman  and  honorable  gentlemen  of  the  committee,  after  the 
eloquent  rhetoric  to  which  you  have  listened  I  men^'y  come  in  these  five  minutes  with 
a  plain  statement  of  facts.  Some  friends  have  said,  "Here  is  the  same  company  of 
women  that  year  after  year  besi<;ge  you  with  their  petitions.*'  We  are  here  to-day  in 
a  representative  ca])acity.  From  the  great  State  of  Illinois  1  come,  representing  200,000 
men  and  women  of  that  State  who  have  recorded  their  written  petitions  for  woman's 
ballot,  90,000  of  these  being  (;itizens  under  the  law,  male  voters  ;  those  90.000  having 
8igne«l  i>etitions  for  the  right  of  women  to  vote  on  the  temperance  <iuestion  ;  90,000 
women  also  signed  those  i)etitions ;  50,000  men  and  wouumi  signed  the  ])ctitions  for 
the  school  vote,  and  nearly  (50,000  more  have  signed  petitions  that  the  right  of  suti'rage 
might  be  accorded  to  woman. 

This  growth  of  i)ublic  sentiment  has  been  occasioned  l)y  the  needs  of  the  children  and 
the  working  wonuMi  of  that  great  State.  I  come  here  to  ask  you  to  make  a  niche  in 
the  statesmanship  and  legislation  of  tlu;  nation  for  tlu^  domestic  interests  of  the  i)eo- 
ple.  You  recogni/(^  that  tlu;  masculine  thought  is  more  often  turned  to  the  material 
and  political  int«'rests  of  the  nation.  I  claim  that  the  motlu'r  thought,  the  woman 
clement  needed,  is  to  supi)lement  the  concurrent  statesinanshi])  of  Auu-rican  men  on 
political  and  industrial  affairs  with  the  domestic  legislation  of  the  nation. 

There  are  good  men  and  women  who  believe  that  women  should  use  their  inlluence 
merely  through  their  social  sphere.  I  believe  both  of  the  great  i)artieH  are  r<'pre- 
sentcid  by  us.  You  remember  that  a  few  weeks  ago  when  there  came  across  the  country 
the  news  of  the  decision  of  tlu;  Supreme  Court  as  regards  tlu'  negro  race,  the  politi- 
cians sprang  to  the  ])latform,  and  our  editors  hastened  t()  their  sanctums  to  ])roi  laim 
to  the  i)eoi»le  that  that  did  not  intiufere  with  the,  civil  rights  of  the  negro,  that  only 
their  social  rights  were  affected,  and  that  the  civil  rights  of  man,  those  rights  worth 
dying  for.  wvni  not  alfccted.  Gentlemen,  we  who  are  trying  to  ludp  the  men  in  our 
municipal  governments,  who  are  trying  to  .save  the  children  from  our  ixxu-houses,  be- 
gin to  realize  that  whatever  is  good  and  essential  for  the  liberty  of  tlie  black  man  is 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


13 


good  tor  the  white  womiin  and  for  all  women.  Wo  are  liere  to  claim  that  whatever 
liberty  has  done  for  yim  it  shonld  allowed  to  do  for  uh.  Take  a  single  glance 
throngh  the  past ;  recognize  the  j^osition  of  American  nia  n  hood  before  the  world  to-day, 
and  whatever  liberty  has  done  for  you,  liberty  will  unrely  do  for  the  mother.s  of  the 
race. 

MRS.  SARAH  E.  WALL. 

Miss  Anthony.  Clentlemen  of  the  (iommittee,  here  is  another  woman  I  wish  to  show 
you,  Sarah  K.  Wall,  of  Worcester,  Mass.,  who,  for  the  last  twenty-live  years,  has  re- 
sisted the  tax-gatherer  when  became  around.  I  want  you  to  look  at  her.  She  looks 
very  harndess.  but  she  will  not  pay  a  dollar  of  tax.  She  says  when  the  Commonwealth 
of  Massachusetis  will  give  her  the  right  of  representation  she  will  pay  her  taxes,  I 
do  not  know  exactly  how  it  is  now,  but  the  assessor  has  left  her  name  off  the  tax-list, 
and  passed  her  by  rather  thau  have  a  lawsuit  with  her. 

REMARKS  BY  MISS  SUSAN  B.  ANTHONY. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  wish  I  could  state  the  avocations  and  professions  of  the  various 
women  who  have  spoken  in  our  convention  during  the  last  three  days.  I  do  not 
wish  to  speak  disparagingly  in  regard  to  the  men  in  Congress,  but  I  doubt  if  a  n>an  oii 
the  door  of  either  house  could  have  made  a  better  speech  than  some  of  those  which 
have  been  made  by  women  during  this  convention.  Twenty-six  States  and  Terri- 
tories are  represented  with  live  women,  traveling  all  the  way  from  Kansas,  Arkansas, 
Oregon,  and  Washington  Territory.  It  does  seem  to  me  that  after  ail  these  years  of 
coming  up  to  this  Capitol  an  impression  shonld  bo  made  ujjon  the  minds  of  legislators 
that  we  are  never  to  be  silenced  nutil  we  gain  the  demand.  We  have  never  had  in 
the  whole  thirty  years  of  our  agitation  so  many  States  represented  in  any  convention 
as  we  have  had  this  year. 

This  fact  shows  the  growth  of  public  sentiment.  Mrs.  Dnniway  is  here,  all  the 
way  from  Oregon,  and  you  say,  when  Mrs.  Duniway  is  doing  so  well  nj)  there,  and  is 
so  hopeful  of  cariying  the  State  of  Oregon,  why  do  not  you  all  rest  satisfied  with 
that  plan  of  gaining  the  suffrage  ?  My  answer  is  that  I  do  not  wish  to  see  the  w  omeu 
of  the  thirty-eight  States  of  this  Union  compelled  to  leave  their  homes  and  canvass 
each  State,  school  district  by  school  district.  It  is  asking  too  much  of  a  moneyless 
class  of  people,  disfranchised  by  the  constirution  of  every  State  in  the  Union.  The 
joint  earnings  of  the  marriage  copartuershii)  in  all  the  States  belong  legally  to  the 
husband.  If  the  wift;  goes  outside  the  home  to  work,  the  law  in  most  of  the  States 
permits  her  to  own  and  control  the  money  thus  earned.  We  have  not  a  single  State  in 
the  Union  where  the  wife's  earnings  inside  the  marriage  copartnership  are  owned  by 
her.  Therefore,  to  ask  the  vast  majority  of  women  who  are  thus  situated,  without 
an  independent  dollar  of  their  own.  to  make  a  canvass  of  the  States  is  asking  too 
much. 

Mrs.  GoUGAU.  Why  did  they  not  ask  the  negro  to  do  that  ? 

Miss  Anthony.  Of  course  the  negro  was  not  asked  to  go  begging  the  white  man 
from  school  district  to  school  district  to  get  his  ballot.  If  it  was  known  that  we 
could  be  driven  to  the  ballot-box  like  a  flock  oi'  sheep,  and  all  vote  for  one  jiarty, 
there  would  be  a  bid  made  for  us;  but  that  is  not  done,  because  we  cannot  promise 
you  any  such  thing;  because  we  stand  before  you  and  honestly  tell  you  that  the 
women  of  this  nation  are  educated  equally  with  the  men,  and  that  they,  too,  have 
political  opinions.  There  is  not  a  woman  on  our  platform,  there  is  scarcely  a  woman 
in  this  city  of  Washington,  whether  the  wife  of  a  Senator  or  a  Congressman — I  do  not 
believe  you  can  find  a  score  of  women  in  the  whole  nation — who  have  not  opinu)n8  on 
the  pending  Presidential  election.  We  all  have  opinions ;  we  all  have  parties.  Some 
of  us  lik(i  one  party  and  one  candidate  and  some  another. 

Therefore  we  cannot  promise  you  that  women  will  vote  as  a  unit  when  they  are  en- 
franchised. Suppose  the  Democrats  shall  put  a  woman-suffrage  i>lank  in  their  plat- 
form in  their  Presidential  convention,  and  nominate  an  open  and  avowed  friend  of 
woman  suffrage  to  stand  ux)on  that  platform  ;  we  cannot  pledge  you  that  all  the 
women  of  this  nation  will  work  for  the  success  of  that  ])arty,  Jibr  can  I  pledge  you 
that  they  will  all  vote  for  the  K<'publican  party  if  it  shouhl  be  the  one  to  take  the 
lead  in  their  enfranchisement.  Our  women  won't  toe  a  mark  anywhere  :  tlu'v  will 
think  atul  act  for  themselves,  and  when  they  are  enfranchised  they  wiil  divide  upon 
all  political  (inestions,  as  do  intelligent,  educated  men. 

I  have  tried  the  experiment  of  canvassing  four  States  prior  to  Oregon,  and  in  each 
State  with  the  best  canvass  that  it  was  i)ossible  for  us  to  make  we  obtained  a  vote  of 
one-third.  One  man  out  of  every  three  men  voted  for  the  enfranchisement  of  the 
women  of  their  households,  while  two  voted  against  it.  P>ut  we  are  proud  to  say  that 
our  splendid  minority  is  always  composed  of  the  very  best  men  of  the  State,  and  I 
think  Senator  Palmer  will  agree  with  me  that  the  forty  thousand  men  of  Michigan 


14 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


who  voted  for  the  eiifranchisenient  of  tlie  women  of  his  State  were  really  the  picked 
men  in  intelligence,  in  cnltnre,  in  morals,  in  standing,  and  in  every  direction. 

It  is  too  nuu-ii  to  say  that  the  majority  of  the  voters  in  any  State  are  snperior,  edu- 
cated, and  capable,  or  that  they  in  vest  iijjate  every  (juestion  thorou<;hly  and  cast  the 
ballot  thereon  intelligently.  AVe  all  know  that  the  majority  of  the  voters  of  any 
Slate  are  not  of  that  stainj).  The  vast  masses  of  the  peoi)le,  the  lahoi  ini^  classes,  have 
all  they  can  <lo  in  tlnnr  strngi^le  to  <;et  food  and  shelter  for  their  families.  They  have 
very  little  time  or  opportunity  to  study  great  (piestions  of  constitutional  law. 

Because  of  this  imv)ossibility  for  women  to  canvass  the  States  over  and  over  to  edu- 
cate the  rank  and  tile  of  the  voters  we  conu;  to  you  to  ask  you  to  make  it  possible  for 
the  legislatures  of  the  thirty-eight  States  to  settle  the  question,  where  we  shall  have 
a  few  representative  men  assembled  before  whom  we  can  make  our  appeals  and  argu- 
ments. 

This  method  of  settling  the  question  by  the  legislatures  is  just  as  much  in  the  line  of 
States'  rights  as  is  that  of  the  popular  vote.  The  one  question  before  you  is,  will  you 
insist  that  a  majority  of  the  individual  voters  of  every  State  must  be  converted  before 
its  wonu'U  shall  have  the  right  to  vote,  or  will  you  allow  the  matter  to  be  settled  by 
the  representative  men  in  the  legislatures  of  the  several  States?  You  need  not  fear 
that  we  shall  get  suffrage  too  (luickly  if  Congress  shall  submit  the  proposition,  for  even 
then  we  shall  have  a  hard  time  in  going  from  legislature  to  legislature  to  secure  the 
two-thirds  vote  of  three-fourths  of  the  States  necessary  to  ratify  the  amendment.  It 
ma}-  take  twenty  years  after  Congress  has  taken  the  initiative  step  to  make  action  by 
the  State  legislatures  possible. 

I  pray  you,  gentlemen,  that  you  will  make  your  refjort  to  the  Senate  sj)eedily.  I 
know  \ou  are  ready  to  make  a  favorable  one.  Some  of  our  speakers  may  not  have 
known  this  as  well  as  I.  I  ask  you  to  make  a  report  and  to  bring  it  to  a  discusaion 
and  a  vote  on  the  lloor  of  the  Senate. 

You  ask  me  if  we  want  you  to  press  this  question  to  a  vote,  provided  there  is  not  a 
majority  to  carry  it.  I  say  yes,  l)ecause  we  want  the  reflex  influence  of  the  discussion 
and  of  the  oi)inions  of  Senators  to  go  back  into  the  States  to  help  us  to  educate  the 
peoi)le  of  the  States. 

Senati)r  Lapiiam.  It  would  re(iuire  a  two-thirds  vote  in  both  the  House  and  the 
Senate  to  submit  the  amendment  to  the  State  legislatures  for  ratification. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  know  that  it  re<iuires  a  two-thirds  vote  of  both  Houses.  But  still, 
I  re]>eat,  ev«'n  if  you  cannot  get  the  two-thirds  vote,  we  ask  you  to  report  the  bill 
and  bring  it  to  a  discussion  and  a  vote  at  the  earliest  day  possible.  We  feel  that  this 
question  should  be  brought  before  Congress  at  every  session.  We  ask  this  little  at- 
tention from  Congressmen  whose  salaries  are  paid  from  the  taxes,  women  do  their 
share  for  the  support  of  this  great  Government.  We  think  we  are  entitled  to  two  or 
three  days  of  each  session  of  Congrcfss  in  both  the  Senate  and  House.  Therefore  I  ask 
of  you  to  hel})  us  to  a  discussion  in  the  Senate  this  session.  There  is  no  reason  why 
the  Senate,  composed  of  seventy-six  of  the  most  intelligent  aiul  liberty-loving  men  of 
the  nation,  shall  not  pass  the  resolution  by  a  two-thirds  vote.  I  really  believe  it  will 
do  so  if  the  friends  on  this  committee  and  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  will  champion 
the  measure  as  earnestly  as  if  it  were  to  benefit  themselves  instead  of  their  mothers 
and  sisters. 

Gentlemen,  I  thank  you  for  this  hearing  granted,  and  I  hope  the  telegraph  wires 
will  soon  tell  us  that  your  report  is  presented,  and  that  a  discussion  is  inaugurated  on 
the  floor  of  the  Senate. 


[Senate,  Mis.  Doc.  No.  74.    Forty-80ve;ith  Congress,  first  sessiou.] 

ARGUMENTS  OF  THE  WOMAN-SUFFRAGE  DELEGATES  BEFORE  THE  COM- 
MITTEE ON  THE  JUDICIARY  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  SENATE,  JAN- 
UARY 23,  1880. 

Makcu  .'JO,  1882. — lioportod  from  tlio  Conimitteo  on  the  .Tudit  iarv.  ordered  to  bo  printed  for  the  use  of 

the  committee,  and  recommitted. 

TiiK  Committee  on  the  Judiciary, 

United  States  Senate, 
^Friday,  January  23,  1880. 

The  committee  assembled  at  half-jjast  10  o'clock  a.  m. 

Tresent,  Mr.  'IMuirman,  chairman,  Mr.  McDonald,  Mr.  Bayard,  Mr.  Davis  of  Illi- 
nois, Mr.  Kdmumls. 

Al.so  Mrs.  ZenddaG.  Wallace,  of  Indiana;  Mrs.  Elizabeth  L.  Saxon,  of  Louisiana; 
Mrs.  Maiy  A.  Stewart,  of  Delaware;  Mrs.  Lucinda  B.  ChandU'r,  of  1  Vnusylvauia ; 
Mrs.  Julia  Smith  Parker,  of  (ilastonbury,  Conn.  ;  Mrs.  Nancy  K.  Allen,  of  Iowa;  Miss 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


15 


Susan  B.  Anthony,  of  Now  York;  Mrs.  Sara  A.  S]mmi((  r,  of  iho  city  of  WaHliiiif^ton, 
and  others,  (U'h^<j;ates  to  tliotwolfrh  Washington  conNcntiou  ()f  the  National  Wonian- 
Sutfraj^e  Association,  hchl  .lannary  21  and  IMSO. 

The  CiiAiK.MAN.  Several  nicnihers  cd"  tlie  eoiniu ittec  are  nnahle  to  1m-  here.  Mr. 
Lamar  is  detained  at  his  home  in  Mississinpi  by  sickness;  Mr.  Cari)ent»'r  is  confined 
to  his  room  by  sic  kness;  Mr.  Conklin*^  lias  been  nnwell  ;  I  do  not  know  how  he  in 
this  mornino- ;  and  Mr.  Garland  is  chairman  of  the  Connnittee  on  Territories,  which 
has  a  meeting  this  mornin<;-  that  he  could  not  omit  to  attend.  1  do  not  think  we  are 
likely  to  have  any  more  members  of  the  committee  than  are  here  now,  and  we  will 
bear  you,  ladies. 

REMARKS  BY  MRS.  ZERELDA  G.  WALLACE,  OF  INDIANA. 

Mrs.  Wallace.  Mr.  Chairman  and  jjentlemen  of  the  committee:  It  is  scarcely 
necessary  to  recite  that  there  is  not  an  effect  without  a  cause.  Therefore  it  would  be 
well  for  the  statesmen  of  this  nation  to  ask  themselves  the  (juestion.  What  has  brought 
the  women  from  all  ])aits  of  this  nation  to  th<'  capital  at  this  time  ;  the  wives,  and 
mothers,  and  sisters;  the  home-lo\  in<;,  law-abiding  women?  What  has  been  the 
stronu'  motivi;  that  has  taken  us  away  from  the  quiet  and  comfort  of  our  own  homes  and 
brought  us  before  you  to-day?  As  an  answer  partly  to  that  question,  I  will  read  an 
extract  from  a  sptiech  made  by  one  of  Indiana's  statesmen,  and  probably  if  1  tell  you 
his  name  his  sentiments  nnty  have  some  weight  with  you.  He  found  out  by  ex})eri- 
ence  and  gave  us  the  benefit  of  his  experience,  and  it  is  what  we  are  lapidly  learning  : 

"You  can  goto  meetings;  you  can  vote  resolutions;  you  can  attend  great  dem- 
onstrationso  n  the  street;  but,  after  all,  the  only  occasion  where  the  American  citi- 
zen expresses  his  acts,  his  opinions,  and  his  power  is  at  the  ballot-box  ;  and  that  little 
ballot  that  he  drons  in  there  is  the  written  sentiment  of  the  times,  audit  is  the  power 
that  he  has  as  a  citizen  of  this  great  Republic." 

That  is  the  reason  why  we  are  here ;  that  is  the  reason  why  we  want  to  vote.  We 
are  no  seditious  women,  clamoring  for  any  peculiar  rights,  but  we  are  ])atient  wo- 
men. It  is  not  the  woman  question  that  brings  us  before  you  to-day;  it  is  the  human 
(juestion  that  underlies  this  movement  among  the  women  of  this  nation  ;  it  is  for 
God,  and  home,  and  native  land,  ^^'e  love  and  ajjpreciate  our  country;  we  value 
the  institutions  of  our  country.  We  realize  that  we  owe  great  obligations  to  the  men 
of  this  nation  for  what  they  have  done.  We  realize  that  to  their  strength  we  owe 
the  subjugation  of  all  the  material  forces  of  the  universe  which  give  us  comfort  and 
luxury  in  our  homes.  We  realize  that  to  their  brains  we  owe  the  machinery  that 
gives  US  leisure  for  intellectual  culture  and  achievement.  We  realize  that  it  is  to 
their  education  we  owe  the  opening  of  our  colleges  and  the  establishment  of  our  public 
schools,  which  give  us  these  great  and  glorious  privileges. 

This  movement  is  the  legitimate  result  of  this  development,  of  this  enlightenment, 
and  of  the  suffering  that  woman  has  undergone  in  the  ages  i)ast.  W^e  find  ourselves 
hedged  in  at  every  effort  we  make  as  mothers  for  the  amelioration  of  society,  as  phi- 
lanthrojjists,  as  Christians. 

Ashoit  time  ago  I  went  before  the  legislature  of  Indiana  with  a  petition  signed 
by  25,000  women,  the  best  women  in  the  State.  I  appeal  to  the  memory  of  Judge 
McDonald  to  substantiate  the  truth  of  what  I  say.  Judge  McDonald  knows  that  I 
am  a  home  losing,  law-abiding,  tax-paying  woman  of  Indiana,  and  have  been  for  fifty 
years.  When  I  went  before  our  legislature  and  found  that  one  hundred  of  the  vilest 
men  in  our  State,  merely  by  the  possession  of  the  ballot,  had  more  influence  with  the 
law-makers  of  our  land  than  the  wives  and  mothers  of  the  nation,  it  was  a  levela- 
tion  that  was  i)erfectly  startling. 

You  must  admit  that  in  popular  government  the  ballot  is  the  most  potent  means  of 
all  moral  and  social  reforms.  As  n!end>ers  of  society,  as  those  who  are  deeply  in- 
terested in  the  promotion  of  good  morals,  of  virtue,  and  of  the  proper  ])rotection  of 
men  from  the  consequences  of  their  own  vices,  and  of  the  i)rotection  of  women  too, 
■we  are  deeply  interested  in  all  the  social  problems  with  which  you  have  grai)pled  so 
long  unsuccessliilly.  We  <lo  not  intend  to  depreciate  your  efforts,  but  you  have  at- 
tempted to  do  an  iinpossible  thing.  You  have  attempted  to  re])resent  the  whole  by 
one-half;  and  we  come  to  you  to-day  for  a  recognition  of  the  fact  that  humanity  is 
not  a  unit ;  that  it  is  a  unity  ;  and  because  we  are  one-half  that  go  to  make  up  that 
grand  unity  we  come  before  you  to-day  and  ask  you  to  recognize  ourrights  as  citizens 
of  this  Republic. 

We  know  that  many  of  us  lay  ourselves  liable  to  contumely  and  ridicule.  We.  have 
to  meet  sneers  ;  but  we  are  determined  that  in  the  defense  of  right  we  will  ignore 
everything  but  what  we  feel  to  be  our  duty. 

We  do  not  come  here  as  agitators,  or  aimless,  dissatisfied,  unhappj'  wonnMi  by  any 
means;  but  we  come  as  human  beings,  recognizing  our  responsil)iliry  to  God  for  the 
advantages  that  have  come  to  us  in  the  development  of  the  ages.  We  wish  to  discharge 
that  responsibility  faithfully,  effectually,  and  conscientiously,  and  we  cannot  do  it 


16 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


undor  our  form  of  _«;ovorninont,  hcd^red  in  as  wo  aro  by  the  lack  of  a  ])Ower  wliich  i» 
siK-li  a  mighty  ('n<;ine  in  our  form  of  ;j;overnment  for  every  means  of  work. 

1  say  to  yon,  then,  we  come  as  one-half  of  tlie  <;reat  whole.  There  is  an  essential 
(litVereiice  in  the  sexes,  ^ir.  Parknum  lal)ore(l  very  liard  to  prove  what  no  one  would 
deny,  that  there  is  an  essential  ditf(!rence  in  the  sexes,  and  it  is  l)eeause  of  that  very 
ditlerentiation,  the  union  of  which  in  home,  the  recoj;nition  of  which  in  society,  hrinj^s 
tin;  «;reatest  happiness,  the  reco<i;nition  of  whicli  in  the  churcli  brings  the  "greatest 
power  and  inilueuce  for  good,  and  the  recognition  of  which  in  tlie  government  would 
enable  us  finally,  as  near  as  it  is  possible  for  humanity,  to  perfect  our  form  of  govern- 
ment. IMobal)ly  Ave  CrtU  never  have  a  perfect  forn\  of  government,  but  the  nearer  we 
api>roxiuiate  to  tlie  divine  the  nearer  will  we  attain  to  jierfection  ;  and  the  divine 
government  recognizes  ntuther  caste,  (dass,  sex,  nor  nationality.  The  nearer  we  ap- 
proach to  that  divine  ideal  the  nearer  we  will  come  to  realizing  our  hopes  of  finally 
securing  at  least  the  most  perfect  form  of  human  government  that  it  is  possible  for  us 
to  secure. 

I  do  not  wish  to  trespass  upon  your  time,  but  I  have  felt  that  this  movement  is  not 
understood  by  a  great  majority  of  peojjle.  They  think  that  we  are  nnhapi)y,  that  we 
are  dissatisfied,  that  w(i  are  r(\stive.  That  is  not  the  case.  When  we  look  over  tin- 
statistics  of  our  State  and  tind  that  CO  per  cent,  of  all  the  crime  is  the  result  of  drunk- 
enness; when  we  find  that  (50  per  cent,  of  the  orphan  children  that  till  our  pauper 
homes  are  the  children  of  drunken  i)arents  ;  when  we  find  that  after  a  certain  age  the 
daughters  of  those  fathers  who  were  ma  de  paupers  and  drunkards  by  the  approbation 
and  sanction  and  under  the  seal  oCthe  Government,  go  to  supply  our  houses  of  ])ros- 
titution,  and  when  we  tind  that  the  .sons  of  these  fathers  go  to  till  up  our  jails  and  our 
penitentiaries,  and  that  the  sober,  law-abiding  men,  the  pains-taking,  economical,  and 
many  of  them  widowed  wives  of  this  nation  have  to  pay  taxes  and  bear  the  expenses 
incurred  by  such  legislation,  do  you  wonder,  gentlemen,  that  we  at  least  want  to  try 
our  hand  and  see  what  we  can  do  ?  We  may  not  be  able  to  bring  about  that  Utopian 
form  of  government  which  we  all  desire,  but  we  can  at  least  make  an  efltbrt.  Under 
our  form  of  government  the  ballot  is  our  right ;  it  is  just  and  proper.  When  you  de- 
bate about  the  expediency  of  any  niatter  you  have  no  right  to  say  that  it  is  inexpedi- 
ent to  do  right.  Do  right  and  leave  the  result  to  (iod.  You  will  have  to  decide  be- 
tween one  of  two  tilings  :  either  you  have  no  claijii  under  our  form  of  Constitution  for 
the  privileges  which  you  enjoy,  or  you  will  have  to  say  that  we  are  neither  citizens 
nor  persons. 

Realizing  this  fact,  and  the  deep  interest  that  we  take  in  the  successful  issue  of  this 
experiment  that  humanity  is  making  for  self-government,  and  realizing  the  fact  that 
the  ballot  never  can  be  given  to  us  under  more  favorable  circumstances,  and  believing 

at  here  on  this  continent  is  to  be  wrought  out  the  great  problem  of  man's  ability  to 
govern  himself — and  when  I  say  man  I  use  the  word  in  the  generic  sense — that  human- 
ity hen'  is  to  wcu'k  out  for  the  great  problems  of  self-government  and  develennieiit, 
and  recognizing,  as  I  said  a  few  minutes  ago,  that  wc;  are  one-half  of  the  great  whole, 
we  feel  that  we  ought  to  be  Inward  when  we  come  bidore  you  and  make  the  plea  that 
we  make  to-da3\ 

REMARKS  BY  MRS.  JULIA  SMITH  PARKER,  OF  (iLASTONBUR Y,  CONX. 

Mrs.  pAJiKEii.  Gentlemen  :  You  may  be  surprised,  and  not  so  much  surprised  as  I 
am,  to  see  a  woman  of  over  four-score  years  of  age  api)ear  before  you  at  this  time. 
She  came  into  the  world  and  reached  years  of  maturity  and  discretion  before  any  per- 
son in  this  room  was  born.  She  now  conies  before  you  to  plead  that  slie  can  vote  and 
have  all  tin;  i)rivileges  that  men  have.  She  has  sutfered  so  niiu  li  individually  that 
she  thought  when  slu;  was  young  she  had  no  right  to  speak  before  the  men;  but  still 
slui  had  courage  to  get  an  education  ecjnal  to  that  of  any  man  at  the  college,  and  she 
had  to  suffer  a  great  deal  on  that  account.  She  went  to  New  Haven  to  school,  and  it 
was  noised  that  she  had  studied  tin;  languages.  It  was  such  an  astonishing  thing  for 
girls  at  that  time  to  have  the  advantages  of  education,  that  I  had  absolutely  to  go  to 
cotillon  parties  to  let  pt'o))le  see  that  I  had  comuKUi  sense.  [Laughter.] 

She  has  suffered,  she  had  to  pay  money.  She  has  had  to  pay  s->W  a  year  in  taxes 
without  tin;  least  ])rivilege  of  knowing  what  becomes  of  it.  She  does  not  know  but 
tliat  it  goes  tosupi)ort  grog-shops.  She  knows  nothing  about  it.  She  has  had  to  suf- 
fer her  cows  to  b(^  sold  at  the  sign  post  six  tinn's.  She  suffered  her  meadow  land  to 
be  sohl,  worth  iii'2,0()0,  for  a  tax  of  h;ss  than  $50.  If  she  <M)uld  \otv  as  the  men  do  she 
would  not  have  suffered  this  insult;  and  so  much  would'not  have  been  said  against 
her  as  has  Ixmmi  said  if  men  did  not  hav(^  the  whole  ]>ower.  I  was  told  that  tliey  had 
the  power  to  take  anything  that  I  owned  if  I  would  not  exert  myself  to  jiay  the 
money.  I  felt  that  I  ought  to  have  sonu'  little  voice  in  determining  what  should  be 
done,  with  what  I  )»ai<l.  I  f»  lt  that  I  ought  to  own  my  own  projierry  ;  that  it  ought 
not  to  be  in  these  men's  hands;  and  I  now  come  to  plead  fliat  1  may  have  the  same 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


17 


privile<;o.s  btjfort'  the  law  that  men  have.  I  have  soon  what  a  ditVorencc  tht  if  is,  w  lieu 
I  have  had  my  cowssohl.  hy  liavin^  a  voti  r  to  take  my  part. 

I  have  come  iVoni  an  obsi  iue  town  (I  cannot  say  tliat  it  is  ohscnro  t'xactly)  on  tho 
banks  of  tho  Connect icnt,  whore  I  was  born.  I  was  bron<i,ht  np  on  a  farm.  I  never 
had  an  i(U'a  that  it  coiihl  be  possibh'  that  I  shonld  ever  come  all  tlu^  way  to  Wash  in  j;- 
ton  to  speak  before  those  who  had  not  come  into  existence  when  I  was  born.  \o\v, 
1  i»lead  that  tliere  u\ay  Ix'  a  sixteenth  aniendnient,  and  that  wonwii  may  be  allowed 
the  i)rivile<>;»5  of  owning  their  own  property.  That  is  what  I  have  taken  ])ainsto  ac- 
complish. I  have  suiVe rod  so  much  myself  that  I  fidt  it  might  have  some  elfect  to 
plead  bt;fore  this  honorable  committee.  1  thank  yon,  gentk'men,  for  hearing  me  so 
kindly. 

REMAlx'KH  BY  MKS.  ELIZABETH  E.  SAXON,  OF  LOUISIANA. 

Mrs.  Saxon.  Gentlemen  :  I  almost  feel  that  after  Mrs.  Wallace's  plea  there  is  scarcely 
a  ne(!e8sity  for  me  to  say  anything,  she  echoed  my  own  feelings  so  entirely.  I  come 
from  th»'  extreme  Sonth,  she  from  the  West.  In  this  delegation,  and  in  I  he  conscn- 
tion  which  iias  jnst  been  Indd  in  this  city,  women  have  come  together  who  never  met 
before.  People  have  asked  me  why  I  came.  I  care  nothing  for  sn  If  rage  so  far  as  to 
stand  beside  men,  or  rnsh  to  the  polls,  or  take  any  privilege  outside  of  my  home, 
only,  as  Mrs.  Wallace  says,  for  hnmauity.  Years  ago,  when  a  little  child,  I  lost  my 
mother,  and  I  was  brought  np  by  a  man.  If  I  have  not  a  man's  brain  I  had  at  least 
a  man's  instruction.  He  taught  me  that  to  work  in  the  cause  of  reform  for  women 
was  just  as  great  as  to  work  in  the  cause  of  reform  for  men.  But  iji  <'very  etibrt  I 
made  in  the  cause  of  reform  I  was  combated  in  one  direction  or  another.  I  never 
took  part  with  the  suffragists,  I  never  realized  the  importance  of  their  cause,  until 
we  were  beaten  back  on  every  side  in  the  work  of  reform.  If  we  attem])ted  to  put 
women  in  charge  of  prisons,  believing  that  wherever  woman  sins  and  sutlers  women 
shonld  be  there  to  teach,  help,  and  guide,  every  ])lace  was  in  the  hands  of  men.  If 
we  made  an  effort  to  get  wom(ni  on  the  school  boards  we  were  combated  and  could  do 
nothing.  Every  place  seemed  to  be  changed,  when  there  were  good  men  in  those 
places,  by  changes  in  politics,  and  the  mothers  of  the  land,  having  had  to  prostrate 
themselv«^s  as  b(>ggars,  if  not  in  fact,  really  in  sentiment  and  feeling,  have  become  at 
last  almost  desperate. 

In  the  State  of  Texas  I  had  a  niece  living  whose  father  was  an  inmate  of  a  lunatic 
asylum.  She  exerted  as  wide  an  influence  in  the  State  of  Texas  as  any  woman  there. 
I  allude  to  Miss  Mollie  Moore,  who  was  the  ward  of  Mr.  Gushing.  I  give  this  illus- 
tration as  a  reason  why  Southern  women  are  taking  part  in  this  movement.  Mr.  Wal- 
lace had  charge  of  that  lunatic  asylum  for  years.  He  was  a  good,  hon'»ral)'e.  able 
man.  Every  one  was  endeared  to  him  ;  everyone  appreciated  him  ;  the  Srate  appre- 
ciated him  as  superintendent  of  this  asylum. 

When  a  political  change  was  made  and  Governor  Robinson  came  in.  Dr.  Wallace 
was  ousted  for  ])olitical  purposes.  It  almost  broke  the  hearts  of  some  of  the  wouieu 
who  had  sons,  daughters,  or  husbands  there.  Tliey  determined  at  once  to  try  to  seek 
some  redress  and  have  him  reinstated.  It  was  impossible.  He  was  out,  and  what  could 
we  do  ?  I  do  not  know  that  we  could  reach  a  case  like  that;  but  such  cases  have 
stirred  the  women  of  the  whole  land,  for  the  reason  that  when  they  try,  to  do  good,  or 
want  to  help  in  the  cause  of  humanity,  they  are  (jombated  so  bitterly  and  persistently. 

I  leave  it  to  older  and  abler  women,  who  have  labored  in  this  cause  so  long,  to  prove 
whether  it  is  or  is  not  constitutional  to  give  the  ballot  to  women. 

A  gentleman  said  to  me  a  few  days  ago,  "  These  women  want  to  marry."  I  am  mar- 
ried ;  I  am  a  mother ;  .and  in  our  home  the  sons  and  l)rother8  are  all  standing  like  a 
wall  of  steel  at  my  back.  I  have  cast  aside  every  prejudice  of  the  past.  They  lie  lik^ 
rotted  hulks  behind  me. 

After  the  fever  of  1S78,  when  our  constitutional  convention  was  going  to  convene,  I 
broke  the  agony  and  grief  of  my  own  heart,  for  one  of  my  children  died,  and  took  i)art  in 
the  suffrage  movement  in  liouisiana,  with  the  wife  of  Chief-Justice  Merrick.  Mrs.  Sarah 
A.  Dorsey,  and  Mrs.  Harri(!t  Kcatinge,  of  New  York,  the  niece  of  Mr.  Lo/,icr.  These 
three  ladies  aided  me  faithfully  and  ably,  when  they  found  we  would  l»c  received.  I 
went  before  the  convention.  I  went  to  Lieutenant-Governor  Wiltz,  and  asked  him  if 
he  would  present  or  consider  a  petition  whicdi  I  wished  to  bring  betbre  the  convention- 
He  read  the  petition.  One  clause  of  our  State  law  is  that  no  woman  can  sign  a  will, 
W^e  will  have  that  (luestion  decided  before  the  meeting  of  tho  next  legislature.  Sonie 
ladies  donated  pro]>erty  to  an  asylum.  They  wrote  the  will  and  signed  it  themselves, 
and  it  was  null  and  void,  because  the  signers  w(M'e  women.  They  n()t  knowiuir  the 
law,  believed  that  they  wei*e  human  being.s,  and  signed  it.  That  clause,  porh.aps 
will  be  wiped  out.  Many  gentlemen  signed  tho  petition  on  that  account.  I  took  the 
paper  around  myself.  Governor  Wilt/,  tlnui  lieutenant-governor,  tohl  me  he  would 
present  the  petition.  He  was  elected  president  of  the  convention.  I  i)ro.sented  niy 
first  petition,  signed  by  the  best  names  in  the  city  of  Now  (Orleans  and  in  rho  State 

S.  Kep.  399  2 


18 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


I  liafl  the  names  of  st'veu  of  tlic  most  prominent  physicians  there,  leading  with  the 
iianic  of  Dr.  Lo<iaii,  and  many  njen  seeing- the  name  of  Dr.  Saninel  Logan,  also  signed 
it.  I  went  to  all  the  different  physiei;ins  and  ministers.  Three  ])roniinent  ministers 
signed  it  lor  moral  pnrposes  alone.  When  Mrs  Dorsey  was  on  her  dying  bed  the  last 
time  she  ever  signed  her  name  was  to  a  hotter  to  go  liefore  that  eonveution.  No  one 
beUeved  she  wonld  die.  Mrs.  Merri(d<:  and  mystdl  went  ht  fore  the  convention.  I  was 
in\  ited  before  the  committee  on  the  judiciary.  1  made  an  impression  favorable  enough 
there  to  be  invited  befoie  the  convention  with  these  ladies.  I  addressed  the  conven- 
ti()n.  We  made  the  ])etition  then  that  w(!  make  here;  that  we,  the  mothers  of  the 
land,  are  bancd  on  every  side  in  the  cause  of  reform.  I  havestrived  hard  in  the  work 
of  relorm  for  women.  1  i)]e<lg<  (l  my  father  on  his  dying  bed  that  1  wouhl  ifever  cease 
that  work  until  woman  stood  with  man  equal  before  (he  law,  so  far  as  my  etforts  conh^ 
accomi)lish  it.  I'indmg  myself  l)a111ed  in  that  work,  I  could  only  take  thecourst;  which 
we  have  adoi)ted,  and  urge  tin;  proposition  of  the  sixteenth  amendment. 

I  beg  of  you,  gt'ntlemen,  to  consider  this  (juestion  apart  from  the  manner  in  which 
it  was  formerly  considered.  We,  as  the  women  of  the  nation,  as  the  mothers,  as  the 
wives,  have  a  right  to  be  heard,  it  seems  to  me,  before  the  nation.  We  represent 
precisely  the  position  of  the  colonitis  when  they  ])lea(l,  and,  in  the  words  of  Patrick 
Henry,  they  were  "spurned  with  contempt  from  the  foot  of  the  throne."  We  have 
been  jeere<l  and  langhed  at,  and  ridiculed;  bni  this  (jnestion  has  i)assed  out  of  the 
region  of  ridicule. 

The  moral  force  inheres  in  woman  and  in  man  alike,  and  unless  we  use  all  the  moral 
power  of  the  Government  we  certainly  cannot  exist  as  a  Government. 

We  talk  of  centralization,  we  talk  of  division  ;  we  have  the  seeds  of  decay  in  our 
Government,  and  nuless  light  soon  we  use  the  moral  force  and  bring  it  forward  in  all 
its  strength  and  bearing,  we  certainly  cannot  exist  as  a  hapi)y  nation.  We  do  not  exist 
as  a  hai)i)y  nation  now.  This  clamor  for  woman's  suffrage,  for  womair*»  rights,  for 
equal  je]>resentation.  is  extending  all  over  the  land. 

I  plead  because  my  work  has  been  combated  in  the  canse  of  reform  everywhere  that 
I  have  tried  to  accomplish  anything.  The  children  that  till  the  houses  of  prostitution 
are  not  of  foreign  blood  and  race.  They  come  from  sweet  American  homes,  and  for 
every  woman  tliat  went  down  some  mother's  heart  broke.  I  plead  by  the  power  of 
the  ballot  to  be  allowed  to  help  reform  women  and  benetit  mankind. 


liEMARKS  OF  MRS.  MARY  A.  STEWART,  OF  DELAWARE. 

Mrs  Stewart.  I  come  from  a  small  Stfvfce,  but  one  that  is  represented  in  this-Con- 
gress  1  consider,  bv  some  of  the  ablest  men  in  the  land.  Our  State,  though  small, 
has  heretofore  ])ossesse<l  and  to-day  possesses  brains.  Our  sons  have  no  more  right 
to  brains  than  our  daughters,  vet  we  are  tied  down  by  every  chain  that  could  bind 
the  (Jeor-ian  slave  before  the  war.  Aye,  we  are  worse  slaves,  because  the  Georgian 
slave  coiUd  go  to  the  sale  block  and  there  be  sold.  The  woman  ot  Delaware  must 
submit  to  h(^-  chains,  as  there  is  no  sale  for  her ;  she  is  of  no  account. 

Woman  from  all  time  has  occupied  the  highest  positions  in  the  world.  She  is  just 
as  competent  to-day  as  she  was  hundreds  of  years  ago.  We  are  taxed  without  rej.re- 
sentation ;  there  isuo  mistake  about  that.  The  colonies  screamed  that  to  Lngland  ; 
P'lrlia  I  ent  s-ream«Ml  back,  "  Be  still ;  long  live  the  King,  and  we  will  help  you 
Did  the  c(donies  submit  ?  They  did  not.  Will  the  women  of  this  country  submit? 
Thev  will  not.  Mark  me,  we  are  the  sisters  of  those  lighting  revolutionary  men  ;  we 
are  the  daughters  of  the  fathers  who  sang  back  to  England  that  they  would  not  sub- 
mit. Then,*'if  the  same  l)lood  courses  in  our  veins  that  courses  in  yours,  dare  you  ex- 
pect us  to  submit  ? 

The  white  men  of  this  country  have  thrown  out  u\nm  us,  the  women,  a  race  in- 
ferior von  must  admit,  to  your  d'augliteis,  and  yet  that  race  has  the  ballot,  and  why? 
He  has  a  ri<-ht  to  it ;  he  earned  and  paid  lor  it  with  his  blood.  Whose  blood  ])aid  for 
yours?  No*?  your  blood;  it  was  the  blood  of  ymir  forefathers;  and  were  they  not 
our  forefathers?  Does  a  man  earn  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  and  lie  down  and  die, 
sayin.--  "  It  is  all  my  bovs'  f  "  Not  a  bit  of  it.  H.;  dies  saying,  '*  Let  my  children,  bo 
they  cripides.  be  they  idiots,  be  they  boys,  or  be  they  girls,  inherit  all  my  property 
alike  "    riieii  let  us  inherit  the  sweet  boon  of  the  ballot  alike. 

Wlien  our  fathers  were  driving  the  great  ship  of  state  we  were  willing  to  ride  as 
deck  or  cabin  passengers,  just  as  we  IVlt  dispos.d  ;  we  had  nothing  to  say  :  but  to-day 
the  boys  are  alxuit  to  run  the  ship  agr(Hind,  and  it  is  high  time  that  the  mothers 
Bhould"  be  asking,  "What  do  you  mean  to  do?"  It  itj  high  time  that  the  mothers- 
should  be  dcniaiHling  what  they  should  long  since  have  had. 

In  our  own  little  State  the  laws  have  been  very  mucli  modified  m  regard  to  women. 
Mv  father  was  the  first  man  to  blot  out  the  old  Knglish  law  allowing  the  eldest  son 
the  ri'-^ht  of  inheritance  to  tiie  real  estate.  He  UnAi  the  first  step,  and  like  all  those 
w  ho  take  first  steps  in  improvement  and  relorm  he  received  a  mouutain  of  curses 
from  the  oldest  male  heirs;  but  it  did  not  matter  to  him. 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


19 


Since  I'^OH  I  liavc,  by  my  own  iiulividnal  t  tVints,  by  tlio  nso  of  har<l-<>arno(l  money, 
gone  to  our  lr<ri.sliituiv  tinui  aft<'r  time  and  have  liad  this  law  ami  tliat  law  ])asse<l  for 
the  benefit  of  the  women;  and  the  same  little  ship  of  stat*^  has  sailed  on.  To-day  our 
men  are  jnst  as  well  satistie<l  with  the  laws  of  onr  Statci  for  the  benefit  of  women  in 
force  as  they  were  years  ajjo.  In  our  State  a  woman  has  a  ri^ht  to  make  a  will.  In 
our  Stat  she  can  hold  bonds  and  moi  t«ra<ies  as  her  own.  In  our  8tat(*  she  has  a  ri^^ht 
to  her  t)wn  i>roperty.  She  cannot  sell  it,  thouj»h,  if  it  is  real  estate,  simply  i>ecause 
the  moment  she  marries  lier  husband  has  u  lifci-time  n<j;]if.  The  woman  does  not 
grumbl<>  at  that ;  but  still  when  he  dies  owninj;  real  estate,  she  ^ets  only  the  rental 
value  of  ont'-thiid,  wliich  is  called  the  widow's  dower.  Now  I  think  the  man  on<;ht 
to  have  the  rental  value  of  one-third  of  tln^  wonmn's  maiden  property  «»r  real  estate, 
and  it  ou<;lit  to  be  called  the  widower's  dower.  It^  would  be  just  as  fair  for  one  as  for 
the  other.    All  that  I  want  is  etjuality. 

The  women  of  our  State,  as  I  said  before,  are  taxed  w  ithout  representation.  The 
tax-<2[atherer  comes  every  year  aud  demands  taxes.  F'or  twenty  years  have  I  ])aid 
tax  under  protest,  and  if  I  live  twenty  years  longer  I  shall  pay  it  under  prot<'st  every 
time.  The  tax-gJitherer  came  to  my  place  not  lon<r  since.  "Well,"  said  I,  "«;ood 
morninir.  sir."  Said  he,  " Gcod  morninjjc."  He  smiled  and  said,  "  I  have  (Mune  botli- 
erini;  you."  Said  I,  "I  know  your  face  well.  You  have  come  to  get  a  right  nici-  lit- 
tle woman's  tongue-lashing."  Said  he,  sui)pose  so,  but  if  you  will  just  i>ay  your 
tax  I  will  leave."  I  ])aid  the  tax,  **But,"  said  I,  "remember  I  j>ay  it  under  ]»rofest, 
and  if  I  ever  pay  another  tax  I  intend  to  have  the  protest  written  and  make  the  tax- 
gatherer  sign  it  before  I  i)ay  the  tax,  and  if  he  will  not  sign  that  protest  then  I  shall 
not  pay  the  tax,  ami  there  will  be  a  tight  at  once."  Said  he,  "  Why  do  you  keep  all 
the  time  ]>rotesting  against  })aying  this  small  tax  ?"  Said  I,  "Why  do  you  pay  your 
tax?"  "Well,"  said  he.  "I  wouhl  not  pay  it  if  1  did  not  vote."  Said  I,  "That  is 
the  very  reason  why  I  do  not  want  to  pay  it.  I  cannot  vote  and  I  do  not  want  to 
pay  it."  Now  the  women  have  no  right  when  election  day  coines  around.  Who  stay 
at  home  from  the  election  ?  The  women  and  the  black  and  white  men  who  have  been 
to  the  whipping-post.    Nice  company  to  put  your  wives  and  daughters  in. 

It  is  .said  that  the  women  do  not  want  to  vote.  Here  is  an  array  of  women.  Every 
■woman  sitting  here  wants  to  vote,  and  must  we  be  del)arred  the  privilege  of  voting 
because  some  luxurious  woman,  rolling  ai"oun<l  in  her  carriage  and  pair  in  her  little 
downy  nest  that  some  good,  benevolent  man  has  provided  tor  her,  does  not  want  to 
vote '.' 

There  was  a  society  that  existed  up  in  the  State  of  New^  York  called  the  Cove- 
nanters that  never  voted.  A  man  who  belonged  to  that  sect  or  society,  a  man  whiter 
haired  than  any  of  you,  said  to  me,  "I  never  voted.  I  never  intended  to  vote.  I 
never  felt  that  I  could  conscientiously  sup])ort  a  Government  that  had  its  Constitu- 
tion blotted  and  blackened  with  the  word  'slave,'  ami  I  never  did  vote  until  after 
the  al)olition  of  slavery."  Now,  were  all  you  men  disfranchised  because  that  class 
or  sect  u])  in  New  York  would  not  vote  ?  Did  you  all  pay  your  taxes  and  stay  at 
home  and  refrain  from  voting  because  the  Covenanters  did  not  vote  ?  Not  a  bit  of  it. 
You  went  to  the  election  and  told  them  to  stay  at  home  if  they  wanted  to,  but  that 
yon,  as  citizens,  were  going  to  take  care  of  yourselves.  That  was  right.  We,  as 
citizens,  want  to  take  care  of  ourselves. 

One  more  thought,  and  I  will  be  through.  The  fourteenth  aud  fifteenth  amend- 
ments give  the  right  of  sutfrage  to  women,  so  far  as  I  know,  ahhongh  you  learned 
men  perhaps  see  a  little  ditt'erently.  I  see  through  the  glass  dimly:  you  may  see 
through  it  after  it  is  polished  up.  The  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  amendments,  in  my 
opinion,  and  in  the  oi)inion  of  a  great  many  smart  men  in  the  country,  and  snuirt 
women,  too,  give  the  right  to  women  to  vote  without  any  "its"  or  "ands"  about  it, 
aud  the  United  States  protects  ns  in  it;  but  there  are  a  few  who  construe  the  law  to 
suit  themselves,  and  say  that  those  amendments  do  not  mean  that,  becau!*'  the  Con- 
gress that  passed  the  fourteenth  and  tifteenth  ami-ndn)enf s  did  not  nu'an  to  do  that. 
Well,  the  Congress  that  passed  them  w  ere  mean  enough  for  anything  if  they  did  not 
mean  to  do  that.  Let  the  wise  Congress  of  to-day  take  the  eighth  chapter  and  the 
fourth  verse  of  the  Psalms,  which  says,  "What  is  man,  that  Thou  art  mindfnl  of 
him  t  "  and  amend  it  by  adding,  "  What  is  woman,  that  they  never  thonght  of  her 

REMARKS  BY  MRS.  LUCINDA  B.  CHANDLER,  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

Mrs.  Chandler.  Gentlemen,  it  will  be  conceded  that  the  progress  of  civilization, 
all  that  lifts  humanity  above  a  groveling,  sensual,  depraved  state  is  nK>rke<l  by  the 
position,  intelligence,  and  culture  of  women.  Perhaps  you  think  that  American 
women  have  no  rightful  claim  to  ])resent;  but  Anu>rican  women  and  mothers  do  claim 
that  they  shouhl  have  the  power  to  X)rotect  their  children,  not  only  at  the  hearth- 
stone, hut  to  supervise  their  education.  It  is  neither  j>resuming  nor  unwomanly  for 
the  mothers  an(l  wom^n  of  the  land  to  claim  that  they  are  competent  an<l  best  htted, 
and  that  it  rightfully  belongs  to  them  to  take  part  in  the  management  and  control 


20 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


of  the  scliools,  and  the  instruc  tion,  botli  intellectual  and  moral,  of  their  ehil»lreu,  and 
that  in  i)enal.  eleemosynary,  or  reformatory  institutions,  that  women  should  have  a 
position  as  inspeetors  of  piisons,  physicians,  directors,  and  sui>erintendents. 

I  have  here  a  hvief  re]ioit  IVoni  an  association  Avhich  sent  me  as  a  dele;fate  to  the 
National  Woman  Su'il'raj;e  Convention,  in  which  it  is  stati'd  that  women  in  Pennsyl- 
vania can  he  electe<l  as  directors  on  school  boards  or  su])erintend<'nts  of  schools,  but 
cannot  help  to  elect  those;  oflicers.  It  must  very  readily  occur  to  your  minds  that 
when  women  take  such  interest  in  the  schools  as  mothers  must  needs  take  they  must 
feel  many  a  wish  to  control  the  election  of  the  othcers,  superintendents,  and  managers 
of  the  schools.  The  la<U<'S  here  from  New  York  City  could,  if  they  had  time,  f^ive 
you  much  testimony  in  ic'iard  to  the  manai^ement  of  schools  in  X(!w  York  City,  and 
the  need  there  of  womaiTs  love  an«i  woman's  ))o\ver  in  the  schools  and  on  thii  school 
boards.  I  am  also  authorized  by  the  association  which  sent  me  here  to  rcjiort  that 
the  woman-sutira Joists  and  some  other  woman  orj^anizations  of  the  city  of  Philadelphia 
have  condenmed  in  resolution  the  action  of  the  governor  a  year  ago,  I  think,  in  veto- 
ing a  bill  which  passed  largely  both  houses  of  the  legislature  to  ap])oint  woujeu  in- 
spectors of  prisons.    On  such  questions  woman  feels  tln^  need  of  the  ballot. 

The  mothers  of  this  land,  having  breathed  the  air  of  freedom  and  received  the  ben- 
etits  of  education,  have  come  to  see  the  necessity  of  better  conditions  to  fulfill  their 
divinely  ap})ointed  and  universally  recognized  office.  The  mothers  of  this  land  claim 
that  they  have  a  right  to  assist  in  making  the  laws  which  control  the  social  relations. 
We  are  under  the  laws  inherited  from  barbarism.  Thej^  are  not  the  conditions  suited 
to  the  best  exercise  of  the  office  of  w^oman,  and  the  women  desire  the  ballot  to  ])urge 
society  of  the  vices  that  arc  sure  to  disintegrate  the  home,  the  State,  the  nation. 

I  shall  not  occupy  your  time  further  this  morning.  I  only  present  brietly  the 
mother's  claim,  as  it  is  so  universally  conceded.  We  now  have  in  our  schools  a  very 
large  majority  of  women  teachers,  and  it  seems  to  me  no  one  can  but  recognize  the 
fact  that  mothers,  through  their  experience  in  the  family,  mothers  who  are  at  all  com- 
petent and  lit  to  fulfill  tlieir  position  as  mothers  in  the  family,  are  best  fitted  to  under- 
stand the  needs  and  at  least  should  have  an  equal  voice  in  directing  the  management 
of  the  schools,  and  also  the  management  of  penal  and  reformatcny  institutions. 

I  was  in  hopes  that  Mrs.  Wallace  would  give  you  the  testimony  she  gave  us  in  the 
convention  of  the  w^onderful,  annizing  good  that  was  accomplished  in  a  reformatory 
institution  where  an  incorrigible  woman  was  taken  from  the  men's  prison  and  became 
not  only  very  tractable,  but  very  helpful  in  an  institution  under  the  indueuce  and 
management  of  women.  That  reformatory  institution  is  numaged  wholly  by  women. 
There  is  not  a  n  an,  Mrs.  Wallace  says,  in  the  building,  except  the  engineer,  who  con- 
trols the  fire  department.  Under  a  management  wiiolly  by  women,  the  institution  is 
a  very  great  success.  We  feel  sure  that  in  many  ways  the  indueuce  and  power  that 
the  mothers  bring  would  tend  to  convert  many  conditions  that  are  now  tending  to 
destruction  through  vices,  would  tend  to  elevate  us  morally,  ])urify  us,  bring  u.-,  still 
higher  in  the  standard  of  humanity,  and  make  us  what  we  ought  to  be,  a  holy  as  well 
an  a  hap])y  nation. 

REMARKS  BY  MRS.  SARA  A.  SPENCER,  OF  WASHINGTON. 

Mrs.  SrENCEH.  Miss  Susan  B.  Anthony  was  chosen  to  present  the  constitutional 
argument  in  our  case  before  the  connnittee.  Unless  there  is  more  important  business 
for  the  individual  members  of  the  conniiittee  than  the  ])rotection  of  one-half  of  our 
population,  I  trust  that  the  limit  fixed  for  our  hearing  will  be  extended. 

The  Chaiuman.  Miss  Anthony  is  entitled  to  an  hour. 

Mrs.  Si'KNCEi'v.  Good.  Miss  Antlnmy  is  from  the  United  States;  the  whole  United 
States  claim  her. 

Mrs.  Allkx.  I  have  made  arrangements  Avith  Miss  Anthony  to  say  all  that  I  feel  it 
necessary  for  me  to  say  at  this  time. 

Mrs.  Spkncek.  I  have  be<>n  so  informed. 

REMARKS  BY  MRS.  NANCY  R.  ALLEN,  OF  IOWA. 

Mrs.  Allen.  Mr.  Chairman  and  gentlemen  of  the  Judiciary  Committee:  I  am  not 
a  State  representaf  i ve,  but  I  am  a  representative  of  a  large  class  of  women,  citizens 
of  losva,  who  are  heavy  lax-payers.  That  is  a  subject  wliich  we  are  very  seriously 
contem])lating  at  this  time.  Tliert;  is  now  a  jjctition  beingcirculate:<l  throughout  our 
State,  lo  be  i)resente(l  to  the  legislature,  ])rayiug  that  women  be  exempted  from  tax- 
ati<m  until  they  have  some  voice  in  the  management  of  local  affairs  and  the  affairs  of 
the  Stat<\  You  nmy  H'ik,  ''Do  not  your  iinsbands  protect  you?  Are  nt)t  all  the  men 
protecting  you  ?"  We  answer  that  our  husbands  are  grand,  noble  mm,  who  are  will- 
ing to  do  all  they  can  for  us,  but  there  are  many  who  have  no  husbands,  and  wdio 
own  a  great  deal  of  ])roi)erty  in  tii<^  State  of  Iowa.    Particularly  in  great  moral  re- 


WOMAN  suf?^kac;e. 


21 


forms  the  woiiieu  tluTe  feel  the  need  ol'  th«*  hallot,  Hy  inrsfiitiii;;  l"n^  petitioiiH  to 
the  leijislatnio  tliey  have  succeeded  in  haviii<r  l»etter  teiiiixTaiice  laws  enacted,  hut 
the  uuMi  havi-  failed  to  elect  oltieials  who  will  <Mifi)rce  those  laws.  CouKequently  they 
have  becouie  as  dead  letters  ui>ou  the  statiit<!  hooks. 

I  wouhl  reftT  aj;aiu  to  taxes.  I  have  a  list  shoN\  ini;  that  in  my  city  thrre  w(»nit  ii  i»;iy 
more  taxes  than  all  the  city  olhcials  iiichnled.  Those  women  are  <roo(l  tenijn  rancid 
Avomen.  Our  city  council  is  coni])osed  almost  entirely  of  saloon  men  and  those  who 
visit  saloons  and  brewery  men.  There  are  some  j^ood  men,  hut  the  ^ood  men  heinj; 
in  the  minority,  the  voices  of  these  women  are  hut  little  re«jarded.  All  these  nfMcials 
arc  ])aid,  and  we  have  to  help  sni)port  them.  All  that  we  ask  isan  e<|nality  of  ri;;hts. 
As  Sumner  said,  E(|uality  of  rij;hts  is  the  lirst  of  ri<^hts."  If  we  can  only  he  e(|ual 
with  man  under  the  law,  it  is  all  that  we  ask.  We  do  not  propose  to  relin(|uish  our 
domestic  circles;  in  fact,  they  are  too  dear  to  us  for  that  :  they  are  dear^  to  us  as  life 
itself;  but  we  do  ask  that  we  may  be  permitted  to  be  rei)res('nted.  I'(iu*ality  of  tax- 
ation without  representation  is  tyranny. 

REMARKS  BY  MISS  SUSAN  13.  ANTHONY,  OF  NEW  YOKK. 

Miss  Anthony.  Mr.  Chairman  and  <!;entlemen  :  Mrs.  Spencer  said  that  I  wouhl 
make  an  ar<;ument.  I  do  not  propose  to  do  so,  because  I  take  it  for  "granted  that  the 
members  of  this  committee  understand  that  we  have  all  the  ar<jument  on  our  side, 
and  such  an  argunu'ut  would  be  sin)ply  a  series  of  ]>latitudes  and  maxims  of  ixovein- 
ment.  The  theory  of  this  (iovernuu'nt  from  the  beiijinuiii<^  has  been  ]>erfect  eiiuality 
to  all  tln'  people.  That  is  shown  by  <'very  one  of  the  fundanuMital  principles,  which 
I  need  not  stop  to  repeat.  Such  beinj^  the  theory,  the  application  would  be,  of  course, 
that  all  i)ersons  not  havinf;  forfeited  their  right  to  representation  in  the  Governnjent 
should  be  ])ossessed  of  it  at  the  aoe  of  twenty-one.  But  instead  of  adoptiuir  a  i)ractice 
in  conformity  with  the  theory  of  our  Government,  we  be<>an  first  by  savin that  all 
men  of  projjerty  were  the  people  of  the  nation  upon  whom  the  Constitution  conferred 
■equality  of  rights.  The  next  step  was  that  all  white  men  were  the  ])coj)le  to  whom 
should  be  i)ractically  applied  the  fundamental  theories.  There  we  halt  to-day  and 
stand  at  a  deadlock  so  far  as  the  api)licat!on  of  our  theory  may  go.  We  w(unen  have 
been  standing  before  the  American  Republic  for  thirty  years  asking  the  men  to  take 
yet  one  step  further  and  extend  the  practical  application  of  the  theory  of  equality  of 
rights  to  all  the  people  to  the  other  half  of  the  i)eople,  the  women.  That  is  all  that 
I  stand  here  to-day  to  attem])t  to  demand. 

Of  course,  I  take  it  for  granted  that  the  committee  are  in  sympathy  at  least  with 
the  reports  of  the  Judiciary  Committees  presented  both  in  the  Senate  and  the  House. 
I  remember  that  after  the  adoption  of  the  fi)urteenth  and  fifteenth  anumdinents  Sena- 
tor Edmunds  reported  on  the  i^etitiou  of  the  ten  thousand  foreign-born  citizens  of 
Rhode  Island  who  were  denied  equality  of  rights  in  Rhode  Island  simply  because  of 
their  foreign  birth  ;  and  in  that  r<»port  held  that  the  ameiulments  were  enacted  and 
attached  to  the  Constitution  simply  for  nu-n  of  color,  and  therefore  that  their  provi- 
sions could  not  be  so  construed  as  to  bring  within  their  purview  the  men  of  foreign 
birth  in  Rhode  Island.  Then  the  House  Committee  on  the  Judiciary,  with  Judge 
Bingham,  of  Ohio,  at  its  head,  made  a  similar  report  upon  our  petitions,  holding  that 
because  those  amendments  were  made  essentially  with  the  black  men  in  view,  there- 
fore their  provisions  could  not  be  extended  to  the  women  citizens  of  this  country  or 
to  any  class  except  men  citizens  of  color. 

I  voted  in  the  State  of  New  York  in  1872  under  the  construction  of  those  amend- 
ments, which  we  felt  to  be  the  true  one,  that  all  persons  born  in  the  United  States,  or 
any  State  thereof,  and  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States,  were  citizens, 
and  entitled  toequality  of  rights,  and  that  no  State  could  deprive  them  of  their  e(|uality 
of  rights.  I  found  three  young  men,  inspectors  of  election,  who  were  simple  enough 
to  read  the  Constitution  and  understand  it  in  accordance  with  what  was  the  letter 
^ind  what  should  have  been  its  spirit.  Then,  as  you  will  remember,  I  was  prosecuted 
by  the  officers  of  the  Federal  court,  and  the  cause  was  carried  through  the  different 
courts  in  the  State  of  New  York,  in  the  northern  district,  and  at  last  I  was  brought 
to  trial  at  Cauandaigna.  When  Mr,  Justice  Hunt  was  brought  from  the  Supreme 
bench  to  sit  U])on  that  trial,  he  Avrested  my  case  from  the  hands  of  the  jury  altogether, 
after  having  listened  three  days  to  testimony,  and  brought  in  a  verdict  himself  of 
guilty,  denying  to  my  counsel  even  the  poor  privilege  of  having  the  jury  ])olled. 
Through  all  that  trial  when  I,  as  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  as  a  citizen  of  the 
State  of  New  York  and  city  of  Rochester,  as  a  person  who  had  done  something  at  le.xst 
that  might  have  entitled  her  to  a  voice  in  speaking  for  herself  and  for  her  class,  in  all 
that  trial  I  not  only  was  denied  my  right  to  testify  as  to  whether  I  voted  or  not,  but 
there  was  not  one  single  woman's  voice  to  be  heard  nor  to  be  considered,  t  xcept  as 
witnesses,  save  when  it  came  to  the  judge  asking,  "Has  the  prisoner  anything  to  say 
why  sentence  shall  not  be  pronounced  ?"  Neither  as  judge,  nor  as  attorney,  nor  as 
jury  was  I  allowed  any  person  who  could  be  legitimately  called  my  peer  to  speak  for 
me. 


22  WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 

r   i\,tin     o  (Mi.it  tlial  lin.'.    ]5oth  Houses  letused  it:  the  couunittccs  reportea 

BiiliMii 

representation  and  ^^'^  f      V    J  Vt         thl  mei^.^^^^^^^^      the  State  militia,  hundreds 

be  did  vote  in  New  York  he^  voted  ^.^      ,  X'e     f  the  State,  but 

bhick  nten  and  black  ^von.en  ^v.'io  exetnpted  1.       tax.  t  black  men 

Constirtition  they  earned  to  the  ^''f' '\ ^ij,.  black  woman  ot  Cou- 
com;"  n,.,l  to  pay  a  h.  avy  t.x  o„         ..n.mnt  ol  ,,.0,....,. 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


23 


Mrs.  Spencer.  Is  it  bocaiiso  slio  is  a  citi/cn  !    I.Mcasc  cxplMiii. 
Misa  Anthony.  Bccaiisci  slu'  is  black. 

Mrs  Spencer.  Is  it  because  the  fourte«nitli  aiul  (iltcenth  amciKliiients  iiia<b'  wnincn 
citizens  ? 

Miss  Anthony.  Certainly  ;  because  it  declared  tlie  black  ]>e()j»lc  citizens. 

(ientleuien,  you  luiM'  belbi-e  _\ou  various  |uo]Kisil  ions  of  amendment  to  the  Fe<leral 
Constituti«)U.  One  is  for  the  election  of  President  by  the  \ otc  «»f  the  i)eo|de  direct. 
Of  couise,  wonuui  are  not  i)eople. 

Senator  Edmunds.  Anj^els. 

Miss  Anthony.  Yes;  an«;els  up  in  Heax'en  or  els(>  devils  down  tlicn-. 
Senator  Kdmunds.  I  have  never  known  any  of  that  kind. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  wish  you,  gentlemen,  would  look  down  there  and  sec  the  myriads 
that  are  there.  We  want  to  help  them  and  lift  them  up.  That  is  exactly  the  trouble 
with  you,  gentlemen  ;  you  are  forever  looking  at  your  own  wi\'es,  your  own  nnithers, 
your  own  sisters,  and  your  own  daughters,  and  they  an;  well  cared  for  and  protected  ; 
but  only  look  down  to  tlu^  struggling  nuisses  of  women  who  ha\'e  no  one  to  ])rotect 
them,  neither  husband,  father,  brother,  son,  with  no  mortal  in  all  the  land  to  i)rotect. 
tbojn.  If  you  would  look  down  there  the  (luestion  wouhl  be  sol  ved  ;  but  the  diflicnlty 
is  that  you  think  only  of  those  who  are  doing  well.  We  ar<;  not  s))eakiug  for  our- 
selves, but  for  those  who  caTinor  speak  for  themselves.  We  art;  speaking  for  the 
doonu'd  asnuieh  as  you,  Senator  Ednnuids,  used  to  speak  for  the  doomed  on  the  plau- 
tatn)ns  of  i  he  South. 

AmenduuMits  have  been  proposed  to  put  God  in  the  Constitution  and  to  keep  God 
out  of  the  Constitution.  AH  sorts  of  propositions  to  amend  the  Constitution  have 
been  made  :  but  I  ask  that  you  allow  no  other  amendment  to  be  ealle<l  the  sixteenth 
but  that  which  shall  put  into  the  handsof  one-half  of  the  entire  people  of  the  nation  the 
right  to  express  their  opinions  as  to  how  the  Constitution  shall  be  amcj'ded  henceforth. 
Women  have  the  right  to  say  whether  we  shall  have  God  in  the  Constitution  as  well 
as  nuMi,  \^'omen  have  a  right  to  say  whether  we  shall  have  a  national  law  or  an 
amendment  to  the  Constitution  i)rohibiting  the  importation  or  manufacture  of  alco- 
holic litjuors.  We  have  a  right  to  have  our  o])inions  counted  on  every  pt)ssible  ques- 
tion concerning  the  public  welfare. 

You  ask  us  why  we  do  not  get  this  right  to  vote  first  in  the  school  districts,  and  ou 
school  (]uestions,  or  the  questions  of  litjuor  license.  It  has  been  shown  very  clearly 
why  we  need  sonu^thing  more  than  that.  You  have  good  enough  laws  to-day  in  every 
State  in  this  Tniou  for  the  suppression  of  what  are  termed  the  social  vices;  for  the 
suppression  of  the  grog-shops,  the  gambling  houses,  tlu^  brothels,  the  obscene  shows. 
There  is  plenty  of  legislation  in  every  State  in  this  Union  for  tlieir  suppression  if  it 
could  be  executed.  Why  is  the  (ioverument,  why  are  the  States  and  the  cities,  unable 
to  execute  those  laws  '  Simply  because  there  is  a  large  balance  of  ])ower  in  every  city 
that  does  not  want  tho.se  laws  executed.  Consetiuently  both  parties  must  alike  cater 
to  that  balance  of  political  power.  The  f)arty  that  juits  a  jdank  in  its  ])latform  that 
the  laws  against  the  grog-shops  and  all  the  other  sinks  of  initjuity  uuist  be  executed, 
is  the  party  that  will  not  get  this  balance  of  power  to  vote  for  it,  and,  consequently, 
the  party  that  cannot  get  into  power. 

VVhat  we  ask  of  you  is  that  you  will  make  of  the  women  of  the  cities  a  balance  of 
political  power,  so  that  when  a  mayor,  a  member  of  theconnnon  council,  a  supervisor, 
a  justice  of  the  peace,  a  district  attorney,  a  judge  on  the  l)ench  even,  shall  go  before 
the  j)eople  of  that  city  as  a  candidate  for  the  sutfrages  of  the  peoi)le  he  shall  not  only 
be  comi)elled  to  look  to  the  nuMi  who  frecjuent  the  grog  shoi>s,  the  brothels,  and  the 
gambling  houses,  who  will  vote  for  him  if  he  is  not  in  favor  of  executing  the  law,  but 
that  he  sliall  have  to  look  to  themothers,  thesisters,  the  wives,  the  (laughters  ofthoso 
deluded  men  to  see  what  they  v.  ill  do  if  he  does  not  execute  the  law. 

We  want  to  make  of  ourselves  a  balance  of  political  power.  What  we  need  is  the 
power  to  execute  the  laws.  We  have  got  laws  enough.  Let  me  give  you  one  little  fact 
in  regard  to  my  own  city  of  Kochesrer.  Y<»u  all  know  how  that  woiulerful  whi]),  called 
the  temi»erance  crusade,  roused  the  whisky  ring.  It  caused  the  whisky  forc(!  to  con- 
centrate itself  more  strongly  at  the  ballot-box  than  ever  before,  so  that  when  the  report 
of  the  elections  in  the  spring  <ft'  went  over  the  C(Mintry,  the  result  was  that  the 
whisky  ring  was  triumphant,  and  that  the  whisky  ticdvet  was  elected  uiore  largely 
than  ever  before.  Senator  Thuruian  will  remember  how  it  was  in  his  own  Sta'e  of 
Ohio.  Everybody  knows  that  if  my  fricmds,  Mrs.  Ex-Gov(!rnoT  Wallace,  Mrs.  Allen, 
and  all  the  women  of  that  great  West  could  have  gone  to  the  ballot  box  at  those  muni- 
cipal elections  and  voted  for  candidates,  no  such  result  woul  l  ha ve  occurred  ;  while 
you  refused  by  the  laws  of  the  Stat(^  to  the  women  the  right  to  have  their  opinions 
counted,  every  rum-seller,  every  drunkard,  every  ])aui)cr  even  frouj  the  poor-house, 
and  every  criminal  outside  of  the  State's  prison  came  out  on  tdection  day  to  t-xpress 
his  opinion  and  have  it  counte<l. 

The  next  result  of  that  political  event  was  that  the  ring  deuuiuded  new  legislation 
to  protect  the  whisky  traffic  everywhere.    In  my  city  the  women  did  not  crusade  the 


24 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


streets,  but  tli«  y  .said  tliey  would  help  the  men  to  execute  the  hnv.  They  lield  uieet- 
iugH,  sent  out  eoniniitteeis,  and  had  testimony  secured  ayjainst  every  man  who  had  vio- 
lated the  law,  and  when  the  hoard  of  excise  held  its  meetin*;  those  women  assembled, 
three  oi-  four  hundred,  in  the  church  one  mornin<;,  and  marched  in  a  solid  l)0(ly  to  the 
common  council  chand)er  where  the  board  of  excise  was  sittin<^.  As  one  rnni-sell(;r 
after  another  broui;lit  m  his  petition  lor  a  lenewal  of  license  who  had  violated  the 
law,  those  women  presented  the  testimony  aj;ainst  him.  The  law  of  the  State  of  New 
York  is  that  no  man  shall  have  a  renewal  who  has  violated  the  law.  Hut  in  not  one 
case  did  that  board  refuse  to  grant  a  renewal  of  licenst;  because  of  the  testimony  which 
those  women  ]»resented,  and  at  the  close  of  the  sittiii<^  it  was  found  that  twelve  hun- 
dred more  licenses  had  been  ^ranted  than  ever  before  in  the  history  of  the  State. 
Then  the  defeated  women  said  they  would  have  those  men  punished  according;  to  law. 
Again  they  retained  an  attorney  and  appointed  connnittees  to  investigate  all  over  the 
city.  They  got  the  proi)er  oHicer  to  jjrosecute  every  rum-seller.  1  Avas  at  their  meet- 
ing. One  woman  re])orted  that  the  oflicer  in  every  city  relused  to  ])rosecute  the  licjuor 
dealer  who  had  violated  the  law.  Why?  Because  if  he  sh.ould  do  so  he  wouhl  lose 
the  votes  of  all  the  enij)loyes  of  certain  shops  on  that  street,  if  another  he  would  lose 
the  votes  of  the  railroad  employes,  and  if  another  h(i  would  lose  the  (ierman  vote,  if 
another  the  Irish  vote,  and  so  on.  I  said  to  those  women  what  Isay  to  you,  and  what 
I  know  to  be  true  to-day,  that  if  the  women  of  the  city  of  Rochester  had  held  the  power 
of  the  ballot  in  their  hands  they  would  have  been  a  great  political  balance  of  i)ower. 

The  last  re])ort  was  from  District  Attorney  Raines.  The  women  complained  of  a 
certain  lager-beer-garden  keeper.  Said  the  district  attorney,  "Ladies,  you  are  right, 
this  man  is  violating  the  law,  everybody  knows  it,  but  if  1  should  prosecute  him  I 
would  lose  the  entire  Geruum  vote."  Said  I,  ''Ladies,  do  you  not  see  that  if  the  women 
of  the  city  of  Rochester  had  the  right  to  vote.  District  Attorney  Raines  would  have 
been  com])elled  to  have  stop])ed  and  counted,  weighed  and  measured.  He  would 
Lave  said.  *Mf  Ijjrosecute  that  lager-b(;er  German,  I  shall  lose  the  o,UO(l  German  votes  of 
this  citv,  but  if  J  fail  to  prosecute  him  and  execute  the  laws,  I  shall  lose  the  votes  of 
20,000  women. 

Do  you  not  see,  gentlemen,  that  so  long  as  you  ])ut  this  power  of  the  ballot  in  the 
hands  of  every  possible  nuin,  rich,  poor,  drunk,  sober,  educated,  ignorant,  outside  of 
the  State's  prison,  to  make  and  unmake,  not  only  every  law  and  law-maker,  but  every 
oftice-holder  who  has  to  do  with  the  executing  of  the  law,  and  take  the  })ower  from 
the  hands  of  the  women  of  the  nation,  the  mothers,  you  i)ut  the  long  arm  of  the  lever, 
as  we  call  it  in  mechanics,  in  the  hands  of  the  whisky  ])ower  and  make  it  utterly  im- 
possible for  regulations  of  sobriety  to  ])e  maintained  in  our  community  ?  The  lirst 
ste])  towards  social  regulation  and  good  society  in  towns,  cities,  and  villages  is  the 
ballot  in  the  hands  of  the  mothers  of  those  places.  I  appeal  to  you  esi)ecially  in  this 
matter.  I  do  not  know  what  you  think  about  the  proper  sphere  of  wonu'u.  It 
matters  little  what  any  of  us  think  about  it.  We  shall  each  ami  every  individual 
find  our  own  i»roper  sphere  if  we  are  left  to  act  in  freedom;  but  my  opinion  is  that 
when  the  whole  arena  of  i)olitics  and  government  is  thrown  open  to  women  tlu'y 
will  endeavor  to  do  very  much  as  they  do  in  their  honu-s  ;  that  the  nu'u  will  look 
after  the  greenback  theorj'^  or  the  hard-money  theory,  that  you  will  look  after  free- 
trade  or  tarili",  and  the  women  will  do  the  home  housekee])ing  of  the  government, 
which  is  to  take  care  of  the  moral  government  and  the  social  regulation  of  our  home 
de])artiiuMit. 

it  seems  to  me  that  we  have  the  power  of  government  outside  to  shape  and  control 
circumstances,  but  that  the  inside  power,  the  government  housekeeping,  is  ])owerles8, 
and  is  compelled  to  accept  whatever  conditions  or  cii cumstanct's  shall  be  granted. 

Thenifore  I  do  not  ask  for  licjuor  suffrage  ahuu'-,  nor  for  school  suffrage  alone,  be- 
cause that  would  amount  to  nothing.  We  must  be  able  to  have  a  voice  in  the  elec- 
tion not  only  of  every  law-maker  but  of  every  one  who  has  to  do  either  with  the 
making  or  the  executing  of  the  laws. 

Then  you  ask  why  we  do  not  get  suffrage  by  the  popular-vote  method.  State  by 
State?  I  answer  because  there  is  no  reason  why  I,  for  instance,  should  desire  the 
women  of  om;  State  of  this  nat  ion  to  vote  any  mow  than  the  women  of  another  State. 
I  have  no  uu)re  interest  as  regards  the  women  of  New  ^)rk  than  I  have  as  regards  the 
women  of  Indiana,  Iowa,  or  any  of  the  States  represented  by  the  women  who  have 
come  up  luue.  The  reason  why  I  do  not  wish  to  get  this  right  by  what  you  call  the 
l)opular-vote  nu'thod,  the  State  vote,  is  because  I  believe  there  is  a  United  States  citi- 
zenship, I  believe  that  this  is  a  nation,  and  to  be  a  citizen  of  this  nation  should  be 
a  guaranty  to  every  citizen  of  the  right  to  a  voie(>  in  the  Govennueul,  and  should 
give  to  me  my  right  to  cixpress  my  opinion.  \on  deny  to  me  my  liberty,  n)y  freedom, 
if  you  say  that  I  shall  have  no  voice  whatever  in  making,  shaping,  or  controlling  the 
conditions  of  society  in  which  I  live,  I  differ  from  Judge  Hunt,  and  1  hope  I  am  re- 
Njjectful  when  I  say  that  I  think  he  made  a  very  funny  mistake  when  he  said  that 
fundamental  rights  belong  to  the  States,  an<l  only  snrtaci^  rights  to  the  National  Gov- 
erinnenf.  I  hope  you  will  agree  with  m<'  that  tlie  fundamental  right  of  citizenship, 
(he  right  to  voice  in  tlu'  (Jovernment,  is  a  national  light. 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


25 


The  National  Govornmmit  may  concede  to  the  States  the  ri<ilit  to  (leci<h-  l>y  a  ma- 
jority as  to  what  banks  tliey  shall  have,  what  laws  they  shall  enact  with  rej^anl  to 
insniance,  with  n'iiard  to  property,  and  any  other  (jnestion;  but  1  insist  ujton  it  that 
the  National  CJov<'rnment  should  not  leave  it  a  (piestion  with  the  .States  that  the  ma- 
jority in  any  8tat<'  ni:iy  disfrMnchise  the  minority  under  :iny  eircumstancfs  whatso- 
ever. The  franchise  t<)  you  men  is  not  secure.  V(tu  hohl  it  to-day,  to  be  sure,  by  the 
connnon  consent  of  white  nu'u,  but  if  at  any  time,  on  your  ])rinciple  of  government, 
the  majority  of  any  of  the  States  should  choose  to  amend  the  State  constitution  so  as 
to  disfranchise  this  or  that  i)ortion  of  the  white  men  by  makinj^  this  or  that  <!ondi- 
tion,  by  all  the  derisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  and  by  the  legislation  thus  far  there  is 
uothin<;  to  hin<ler  them. 

Therefore  the  wonuui  <lemand  a  sixteenth  amendment  to  bring  to  women  tlu^  right 
to  vote,  or  if  you  pleas*^  to  confer  upon  women  their  right  to  vote,  to  protect  them  in 
it,  and  to  secure  n)en  in  their  right,  bt>cause  you  are  not  secure. 

I  would  let  the  States  act  u])on  almost  every  other  question  by  majorities,  except 
the  power  to  say  whether  my  opinion  shall  be  counted.  I  insist  upon  it  that  no  State 
shall  decide  that  question. 

Then  the  poi)ular-vote  method  is  an  impracticable  thing.  We  tried  to  get  negro 
surtrage  by  tlie  popular  vote,  as  you  will  remember.  Senator  Thurman  will  remember 
that  in  Oliio  the  Ke])ublicans  submitted  the  question  in  18(57,  and  witli  all  the  ])re8- 
tige  of  the  National  Eepublican  i)arty  and  of  the  State  party,  when  every  intluence 
that  could  be  brought  by  the  power  and  the  patronage  of  the  party  in  power  was 
brought  to  bear,  yet  negro  sutfrage  ran  behind  the  regular  Republican  ticket  40,000. 
It  was  tried  in  Kansas,  it  was  tried  in  New  York,  and  everywhere  that  it  was  sub- 
mitted the  (luestion  was  voted  down  overwhelmingly.  Just  so  we  tried  to  get  women 
sutfrage  bv  the  ])oi>ular-vote  method  in  Kansas  in  1807,  in  Michigan  in  1874,  in  Colo- 
rado in  1877,  and  in  each  case  the  result  was  precisely  the  same,  the  ratio  of  the  vote 
standing  one-third  for  women  snftiage  and  two-thirds  against  women  suffrage.  If  we 
were  to  canvass  State  after  State  we  should  get  no  better  vote  than  that.  Why?  Be- 
cause the  question  of  the  enfranchisement  of  woman  is  a  (jnestion  of  government,  a 
question  of  philoso])hy,  of  understanding,  of  great  fundamental  principle,  and  the 
masses  of  the  hard-working  people  of  this  nation,  men  and  women,  do  not  think  upon 
principles.  They  can  only  think  on  the  one  eternal  struggle  wherewithal  to  be  fed, 
to  be  clothed,  and  to  be  sh(dtered.  Therefore  I  ask  you  not  to  compel  us  to  have  this 
question  settled  by  what  you  term  the  popular-vote  method. 

Let  me  illustrate  by  Colorado,  the  most  recent  State,  in  the  election  of  1877.  I  am 
hapi)y  to  say  to  you  that  I  have  canvassed  three  States  for  this  (luestion.  If  Senator 
Chandler  were  alive,  or  if  Senator  Ferry  were  in  this  room,  they  would  remember 
that  I  followed  in  their  train  in  Michigan,  with  larger  audiences  than  either  of  those 
Senators  throughout  the  whole  canvass.  T  want  to  say,  too,  that,  although  those 
Senators  may  have  believed  in  woman  sutfrage,  they  did  not  say  much  about  it. 
They  did  not  help  us  much.  The  Greenback  movement  Avas  quite  popular  in  Michi- 
gan at  that  time.  The  Kepublicans  and  Greeubackers  made  a  most  humble  bow  to 
the  Grangers,  but  woman  sutfrage  did  not  get  much  help.  In  Colorad(  ,  at  the  close 
of  the  canvass,  6,(i6(i  men  voted  "  Yes."  Now,  I  am  going  to  describe  the  men  who 
voted  "  Yes."  They  were  native-born  white  men,  temperance  men,  cultivated,  broad, 
generous,  just  men,  men  who  think.  On  the 'other  liand,  lb,007  voted  *'No."  Now", 
I  am  going  to  describe  that  class  of  voters.  In  the  southern  part  of  that  State  there 
are  Mexicans,  who  speak  the  Spanish  language.  They  put  their  wheat  in  circles  on 
the  ground  with  the  heads  out,  and  drive  a  mule  around  to  thrash  it.  The  vast  popu- 
lation of  Colorado  is  made  up  of  that  class  of  people.  I  was  sent  out  to  speak  in  a 
voting  precinci  having  200  voters  ;  1,")0  of  those  voters  were  Mexican  greasers,  40  of 
them  foreign-born  citizens,  and  just  10  of  them  were  born  in  this  country;  and  I 
was  sup])osed  to  be  com])etent  to  convert  those  men  to  let  me  have  as  much  right  in 
this  Government  as  they  had,  when,  unfortunately,  the  great  majority  of  them  could 
not  understand  a  word  that  I  said.  Fifty  or  sixty  Mexican  greasers  stood  against 
the  wall  with  tluiir  hats  down  over  their  faces.  The  Germans  put  seats  in  n  lager- 
beer  saloon,  and  would  not  attend  unless  I  made  a  speech  there ;  so  I  had  a  small 
audience. 

Mrs.  Archibald.  There  is  one  circumstance  that  I  should  like  to  relate.  In  the 
county  of  Las  Animas,  a  county  where  there  is  a  large  population  of  Mexicans,  and 
where  they  always  have  a  large  majority  over  the  native  i»opulation.  they  «lo  not 
know  our  language  at  all.  Consequently  a  number  of  tick<'ts  must  be  ])rinted  for 
those  ])e()ple  in  Si)ani8h.  The  gentleman  in  our  little  town  of  Trinidad  who  had  the 
charge  of  the  printing  of  those  tickets,  being  adverse  to  ns.  had  every  ticket  ])riuted 
against  woman  sutfrage.  The  sain))les  that  were  sent  to  ns  from  Denver  were  "for" 
or  "against,"  but  the  tickets  that  were  ])rinted  only  had  tlu*  .vord  "against"  on 
them,  so  that  our  friends  had  to  scratch  their  tickets,  and  all  those  Mexican  j)eople 
who  could  not  understand  this  trick  and  did  not  know  the  facts  of  the  case,  voted 
against  woman  sutfrage;  so  that  we  lost  a  great  many  votes.  This  was  man's  gen- 
erosity. 


26 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


Miss  Anthony.  Special  leffislatioii  for  the  benefit  of  woman  !  I  will  admit  you 
that  on  the  floor  of  the  constitutional  convention  was  a  representative  Mexican,  in- 
telligent, cultivated,  chairman  of  the  commil  tee  on  sntirage,  who  sigiied  tlu' petition, 
and  was  the  first  to  s])eak  in  favor  of  woman  siitfrage.  Then  they  have  in  Denver 
about  400  nej;roes.  Governor  Kojitt  said  to  nu;,  "Th»'  400  Denver  nejrroes  are  going 
to  vote  solid  for  woman  suttrage,"  I  said,  "  I  do  not  know  much  about  the  Denver 
negroes,  but  I  know  certainly  what  all  negroes  were  educated  in,  and  slavery  never 
educated  master  or  negro  into  a  comprehension  of  the  great  princii)les  of  human  free- 
dom of  our  nation  ;  it  is  not  possible,  and  I  do  not  believe  they  aie  going  to  vote  for 
us."  Just  ten  of  those  Denver  negroes  voted  for  woman  sufirage.  Then,  in  all  the 
mines  of  Colorado  the  vast  majority  of  the  wages  laborers,  as  you  know,  are  foreign- 
ers. There  may  be  intelligent  foreigners  in  this  country,  and  I  know  there  are,  who 
are  in  favor  of  the  enfranchisementof  woman,  but  that  one  does  not  happen  to  be  Carl 
Schur/,  I  am  ashamed  to  say.  And  I  want  to  say  to  you  of  Carl  Schnr/,  that  side  by 
side  with  that  man  on  the  battle-fields  of  Germany  was  Madame  Anneke,  as  noble  a 
woman  as  ever  trod  the  Anierican  soil.  Slu;  rod(i  by  the  side  of  her  husband,  who  was 
an  officer,  on  the  battle-field;  she  slei)t  in  battle-field  tents,  and  she  fled  from  Ger- 
many to  this  country  f\)r  her  life  and  property,  side  by  side  with  Carl  Schurz.  Now, 
what  is  it  for  Carl  Schurz,  stepi)ing  up  to  the  very  door  of  the  Presidency  and  looking 
back  to  Madame  Anneke,  who  fought  for  liberty  as  W(>11  as  he,  to  say,  "You  be  sub- 
ject in  this  republic,  I  will  be  sovereign."  If  it  is  an  insult  for  Carl  Schurz  to  say 
that  to  a  native-born  Gernum  wonum,  what  is  it  for  him  to  say  it  to  Mrs.  ex-Gover- 
nor Wallace,  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton,  Lucretia  Mott,  to  the  native-born,  educated, 
tax-paying  woummi  of  this  republic  ?  I  can  forgive  an  ignorant  foreigner;  I  can  for- 
give an  ignorant  negro;  but  I  cannot  forgive  Carl  Schurz. 

Right  in  the  file  of  the  foreigners  opposed  to  woman  suffrage,  educated  under  mon- 
archical governments  that  do  not  comprehend  our  i)rinciples,  whom  I  have  seen  trav- 
eling through  the  prairies  of  Iowa,  or  the  ])rairies  of  Minnesota,  are  the  Bohemians, 
Swedes,  Norwegians,  Germans,  Irishmen,  Mennouites ;  I  have  seen  them  riding  on 
those  magniticent  loads  of  wheat  with  those  nuignificent  Saxon  horses,  shining  like 
glass  on  a  sunny  morning,  every  one  of  them  going  to  vote  '*no"  against  woman  suf- 
frage. You  cannot  convert  them  ;  it  is  impossible.  Now  and  then  there  is  a  whisky 
uumnfacturer,  drunkard,  inebriate,  libertine,  and  what  we  call  a  fast  man,  and  a 
colored  man,  broad  and  generous  enough  to  be  willing  to  let  women  vote,  to  let  his 
mother  have  her  opinion  counted  as  to  whether  there  shall  be  license  or  no  license, 
but  the  rank  and  file  of  all  classes  who  wish  to  enjoy  full  license  in  what,  are  termed 
the  petty  vices  of  men  are  pitted  solid  against  the  enfianchisement  of  women.  Then, 
in  addition  to  all  these,  there  are,  as  you  know,  a  fcAv  religious  bigots  left  in  the  wtirld 
who  really  believe  that  somehow  or  other  if  wouuui  are  allowed  to  vote  Saint  Paul 
would  feel  badly  about  it.  I  do  not  know  but  that  some  of  the  gentlemen  ])re!<ent  be- 
long to  that  class.  [Laughter.]  So  when  you  i)ut  those  best  men  of  the  nation  having 
religion  about  everything  except  on  this  one  question,  whose  prejudices  con  rol  them, 
with  all  this  vast  mass  of  ignorant,  uneducated,  degraded  ]>opulation  in  this  country, 
you  make  an  overwhelming  and  insurmountable  majority  against  the  enfranchisement 
of  women. 

It  is  because  of  this  fact  that  I  ask  you  not  to  remand  us  back  to  the  States,  but  to 
submit  to  the  States  the  proposition  «f  a  sixteenth  amendment.  The  poi)ular  vote 
method  is  not  only  of  itself  an  impossibility,  but  it  is  too  humiliating  a  process  to 
compel  the  women  of  this  nation  to  subn)it  to  any  longer. 

lam  going  to  give  you  an  illustration,  not  because  I  have  any  disrespect  for  the  per- 
son, because  on  many  other  (luestions  he  was  really  a  good  deal  better  than  a  good  numy 
other  men  who  had  not  so  bad  a  name  in  this  nation.  When,  under  the  old  rq/ime, 
John  Morrissey,  of  my  State,  the  king  of  gamblers,  was  a  Re|)resentative  on  the  floor 
of  Congi  ess,  it  was  humiliating  enough  for  Lucretia  Mott,  for  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton, 
for  all  of  us  to  come  down  here  to  Washington  ami  beg  at  the  feet  of  John  Morrissey 
that  he  would  let  intelligent,  native-born  women  vote,  and  let  us  have  as  much  right 
in  this  (iovernment  and  in  the  government  of  the  city  of  New  York  as  he  had.  When 
John  M(urissey  was  a  member  of  the  New  York  State  legislature  it  would  have  b«'en 
humiliating  enough  for  us  to  go  to  the  New  Y(m1c  Stat«>  legislature  and  pray  of  John 
Mcurissey  to  vote  to  ratify  tlu^  sixtci'iith  amendment,  giving  to  us  a  right  to  vote  :  but 
if  instead  of  a  sixteenth  amendment  you  tell  us  to  go  back  to  the  p()])ular  vote  method, 
the  old  tinu^  method,  and  go  down  into  John  Morrissey's  seventh  C'ongressional  <lis- 
trict  in  thecity  of  New  York,  and  there,  in  the  sloughs  and  slum  of  that  great  Sodom, 
in  the  grog-sho])s,  the  gaml)ling-houst's,  and  the  brotlu'ls,  beg  at  the  feet  of  each  in- 
dividual listicutf  of  his  constituency  to  give  the  nobh',  educated,  native-born,  tax- 
l)ayiug  women  of  the  State  of  New  York  as  much  right  as  he  has,  ihat  would  be  too 
bitter  a  pill  for  a  native-born  woman  to  swallow  any  longer. 

I  beg  you,  gentlemen,  to  save  us  from  the  mortification  and  the  humiliation  of  ap- 
pealing "to  tlm  rabble.  We  already  have  on  our  side  the  vast  majority  of  the  better 
educated — the  best  classes  of  num.    You  will  remember  that  Senator  Christiancy,  of 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE 


27 


Micliijjjan,  two  years  af^o,  said  on  tho  floor  of  the  S»Miate,  tliat  of  tlni  4(i.()()(»  mon 
who  voted  for  women  H)irtiaj;o  in  Michij^an  it  wassaiil  that  there  was  not  a  drunkard, 
not  a  libertine,  not  a  ••nnihh'r,  not  a  d(  i)ia\  «d,  low  man  amon«:8t  them,  Ik  not  that 
somethintr  that  tells  for  iis,  antl  for  our  rijjht  ?  It  is  the  fact,  in  every  Stat(^  of  tho 
Union  that  we  have  the  intelligent  lawyers  and  the  most  liln-ral  mini.sters  of  all  the 
sects,  not  exceptiiiii' the  Roman  Catholics.  A  liomaii  Catholic  priest  ]>reach<Ml  a  ser- 
mon the  other  day,  in  which  he  said,  "  (iod  <»rant  that  tluMv  were  a  thousand  Susan  li. 
Anthonys  in  this  city  to  vote  and  work  for  temperance."  When  a  Catholic  priest  nays 
that  there  is  a  great  nu)ral  necessity  pressiui;-  down  u])on  this  iuiti<ui  denuiuding  the 
enfranchisement  of  women,  I  ask  you  that  you  shall  not  tlrive  ns  back  to  bej;  our 
rights  at  the  feet  of  thenu)st  ignorant  and  dei)ravedmen  of  the  nation,  l)ut  that  you, 
the  representative  nu'U  of  the  riation,  will  hold  thecjuestion  in  the  hollow  of  your 
hands.  We  ask  you  to  lift  this  question  out  of  the  hands  of  the  rabble.  You  who  are 
here  upon  the  floor  of  Congress  in  both  Houses  are  the  i)ickcd  men  of  the  nation.  You 
may  say  what  you  please  about  John  Moirissey,  the  g.imblcr,  tVc.;  he  was  head  and 
shoulder  abovt;  the  rank  and  tile  of  his  constituency.  'I'he  world  may  gabble  ev(^r  so 
much  about  members  of  Congress  being  corrupt  and  being  bought  and  sold  ;  they  are 
as  a  rule  head  and  slioulders  amongst  the  great  majority  who  compose  their  Stat(^  gov- 
ernments. There;  is  no  <loubt  about  it.  Tlierefore  I  ask  of  you,  as  re])resentati ve 
ujen,  as  men  who  think,  as  men  who  study,  as  men  who  pliilosophi/e,  as  men 
who  know  that  you  will  not  drive  us  back  to  the  States  any  more,  but  that 
you  will  carry  out  this  nu^thod  of  proce<lur«;  which  has  been  practiced  from  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Government  ;  that  is,  that  you  will  put  a  prohibitory  amendment  in 
the  Contitution,  and  submit  the  i»roposition  to  the  several  State  legislatures.  The 
am«;ndmeut  which  has  been  presented  before  you  reads: 

Article  XVI. 

Section  1.  The  right  of  sulfrage  in  tlie  United  States  sliall  be  based  on  citizensliip, 
and  the  right  of  citizens  of  the  United  States  to  vote  shall  not  be  denied  or  al)ridge(l 
by  tin;  United  Slates,  or  by  any  State,  on  account  of  sex,  or  for  any  reason  not  efjually 
applicable  to  all  citizens  of  the  United  States. 

Sec.  'Z.  Congress  shall  have  power  to  enforce  this  article  by  appropriate  legislation. 

In  this  way  we  would  get  the  right  of  suffrage  just  as  nnich  by  what  yon  call  the 
consent  of  the  States,  or  the  States'  rights  method,  as  by  any  other  method.  'J'Ik^  only 
])oint  is  that  it  is  a, decision  by  the  representative  men  of  the  States  instead  of  by  the 
rank  and  tile  of  the  ignorant  men  of  the  States.  If  you  would  submit  this  i)roposition 
for  a  sixteenth  amendment,  by  a  two-thirds  vote  of  the  two  Houses,  to  the  several 
legislatures,  and  the  several  legislatures  ratify  it,  that  would  be  just  as  much  by  the 
consent  of  the  States  as  if  Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry,  voted  "yes"  or  "  no."  Is  it"  not, 
Senator?  I  want  to  talk  to  Democrats  as  well  as  Repnblicans,  to  show  that  it  is  a 
States'  rights  method. 

Senator  Edmunds.  Does  anybody  propose  any  other,  in  case  it  is  done  at  all  by  the 
nation? 

Miss  Anthony.  Not  by  the  nation,  but  they  are  continnally  driving  us  back  to 
get  it  from  the  States,  State  by  State.  That  is  the  point  I  want  to  make.  We  do  not 
want  you  to  drive  us  back  to  the  States.  We  want  you  men  to  take  the  question  out 
of  the  hands  of  the  rabble  of  the  State. 

The  Chairman.  May  I  interrupt  you? 

Miss  Anthony.  Yes,  sir;  I  wisli  you  would. 

The  Chairman.  You  have  reflected  on  this  subject  a  great  deal.    Yon  think  there 
is  a  majority,  as  I  understand,  even  in  the  State  of  New  York,  against  woman  suttrage  ? 
Miss  Anthony.  Yes,  sir;  overwhelmingly. 

The  Chairman.  How,  then,  would  you  get  legislatures  elected  to  ratify  such  a  con- 
stitutional amendriu'ut  ? 

Miss  A.XTHONY.  That  brings  me  exactly  to  the  point. 
The  Chairman.  That  is  the  point  I  wish  to  hear  you  upon. 

Miss  Anthony.  Because  the  nuunbers  of  tlie  State  legislatures  are  intelligent  men 
and  can  vote  and  enact  laws  enibodying  great  i)rinciples  of  the  Government  without 
in  any  wise  eudangeriug  tlu'ir  positions  with  tlunr  constituencies.  A  constitu«'ncy 
comi)<.sed  of  ignorant  men  would  vote  solid  against  us  because  they  have;  never  tlnuight 
on  tilt;  (]uestion.  Every  man  or  woman  who  believes  in  the  enfrauchisemenl  of  women 
is  educated  out  of  every  idea  that  he  or  she  was  born  into.  We  were  all  born  into 
the  idea  that  the  proper  si)h;'re  of  woman  is  subjection,  and  it  takes  education  and 
thought  ami  culture  to  lift  us  out  of  it.  Thcn'fore  when  men  go  to  the  ballot-l)ox 
they  all  vote  "  no,"  unless  they  have  actual  ai'gumeut  on  it.  I  will  illustrate.  \Ve 
have  six  legislatures  in  the  nation,  for  instance,  that  have  extended  the  right  to  vote 
on  school  (juestions  to  the  women,  and  not  a  single  member  of  a  State  h'gislature  has 
ever  lost  his  ottice  or  forfeited  the  respect  or  confldem-*'  of  his  constituents  as  a  repre- 


28 


WOMAN  S .  FFRAGE. 


seutative,  because  be  voted  to  give  women  tbe  rigbt  to  vote  on  scbool  qnestions.  It 
is  a  (jiiestion  tbat  tbe  uutliinkinj?  masses  never  bave  tbont^bt  n])on.  Tliey  do  not  care 
about  it  one  way  or  tbe  otber,  only  tbey  bave  an  instinctive  feelini;  tbat  because  wo- 
men never  tlid  vot(i  tberefore  it  is  wronj^  tbat  tbey  ever  sbonbl  vote. 

Mrs.  8p«ncku.  Do  make  tbe  point  tbat  tbe  Congress  of  tbe  United  States  leads  tbe 
legislatures  of  tin?  States  and  e<lucates  tluiui. 

Miss  Anthony.  Wlu;n  you,  rei)resentative  men,  carry  tins  nuitter  to  legislatures, 
State  by  State,  tbey  will  ratify  it.  My  i)()int  is  tbat  you  can  safely  do  tins.  Senator 
Tburmau,  of  Obio,  would  not  lose  a  single  vote  in  Obio  by  voting  in  favor  of  tbe  en- 
franc  bisenu'.nt  of  women.  Seiuitor  Edmunds  would  not  lose  a  single  Re))ul)lican  vote 
in  tbe  State  of  Vermont  if  be  ])uts  biniself  on  our  side,  wbicb,  I  tbink,  be  will  do.  It 
is  not  a  political  question.  We  are  no  })otitical  ])ower  tbat  can  make  or  V»reak  eitber 
party  to-day.  Couse(iuently  eacb  man  is  left  independent  to  express  bis  own  moral 
and  intellectual  convictions  on  tbe  matter  witbout  endangering  bimslf  ]>olitically. 

Senator  Edmunds.  I  tbink,  Miss  Antbony,  you  ougbt  to  put  it  on  ratlier  bigber,  I 
will  not  say  stronger,  ground.  If  yon  can  convince  us  tbat  it  is  rigbt  we  would  not 
stop  to  see  bow  it  att'ected  us  politically. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  was  coming  to  tbat.  I  was  going  to  say  to  all  of  you  men  in  of- 
fice bere  to-day,  tbat  if  you  cannot  go  forward  and  carry  out  eitber  your  Democratic 
or  your  Rei)ul)lican  or  your  Greenback  theories,  for  instance,  on  tbe  finance,  tbere  is 
no  great  })olitical  ]>ower  tbat  is  going  to  take  yon  away  from  tbese  balls  and  prevent 
you  from  doing  all  tbose  otber  tilings  wbicb  you  want  to  do,  and  you  can  actotit  your 
own  moral  and  intellectual  convictions  on  this  witbout  let  or  binderance. 

Senator  Edmunds.  Witbout  any  danger  to  tbe  j)ul)lic  interests,  yon  mean. 

Miss  Anthony'.  Witbout  any  danger  to  tbe  public  interests.  I  did  not  mean  to 
make  a  bad  insinuation.  Senator. 

I  want  to  give  yon  anotber  reason  wby  we  api)eal  to  you.  In  tbese  three  States 
where  tbe  question  has  been  submitted  and  voted  down  we  cannot  get  anotber  legis- 
lature to  resubmit  it,  because  tbey  say  the  })eo])le  bave  expressed  their  opinion  and  de- 
cided no,  and  tberefore  nobody  with  any  ])olitical  sense  would  resubmit  tbe  question. 
It  is  tberefore  impossible  in  any  one  of  those  States.  We  have  tried  hard  in  Kansas 
for  ten  years  to  get  tbe  (question  resubmitted  ;  the  vot(^  of  tbat  State  seems  to  be  taken 
as  a  liiiality.  We  ask  you  to  lift  the  sixteeeuth  amendment  out  of  the  arena  of  the 
public  mass  into  tbe  arena  of  thinking  legislative  brains,  the  brains  of  the  nation, 
nnder  the  law  and  the  Constitution.  Not  only  do  we  ask  it  for  that  pur])oee,  but 
when  you  will  bave  by  a  two-thirds  vote  submitted  the  proi)osition  to  tbe  several  legis- 
latures, you  have  ])ut  the  pin  down  and  it  never  can  go  back.  No  subsequent  Congress 
can  rev<»kti  that  submission  of  the  ])io]tosition  ;  tbere  will  be  so  much  gained  ;  it  can- 
not slidi!  back.  Then  we  will  go  to  New  York  or  to  Pennsylvania,  and  urge  upon  the 
legislatures  the  ratification  of  tbat  amendment.  They  may  refuse  ;  they  may  vote  it 
down  tbe  first  time.  Then  we  will  go  to  tbe  next  legislature,  and  the  next  legisla- 
ture, and  plead  and  plead,  from  year  to  year,  if  it  takes  ten  years.  It  is  an  open 
(luestion  to  every  legislature  until  we  can  get  one  tbat  will  ratify  it,  and  when  tbat 
legislature  has  once  voted  and  ratified  it  no  subse(iuent  legislation  can  revoke  their 
ratification. 

Thus,  yon  perceive,  Senators,  that  every  step  we  would  gain  by  this  sixteenth- 
amendment  |)rocess  is  fast  and  not  to  be  done  over  again.  That  is  why  I  a]>])eal 
to  you  especially.  As  I  bave  shown  yon  in  tbe  respective  States,  if  we  fail  to  edu- 
cate the  people  of  a  whole  State — and  in  Michigan  it  was  only  six  months,  and  in 
Colorado  less  than  six  months — the  State  legislatures  say  that  is  the  end  of  it.  I  ap- 
])eal  to  you,  therefore,  to  ado])t  the  course  that  we  suggest. 

GenthMuen  of  tiic  committee,  if  there  is  a  question  that  you  want  to  ask  me  before 
I  make  my  linal  appeal,  I  should  like  to  have  you  ])ut  it  now  ;  any  question  as  to  cou- 
stitutiouai  law  or  your  right  to  go  forward.  Of  course,  you  do  not  deny  to  us  that 
this  amendment  will  be  right  in  tbe  line  of  all  the  amendments  heretofore.  The 
eleventh,  twelfth,  thirteenth,  fourteenth,  fifteenth  amendments  are  all  in  line  ]>robib- 
iting  the  States  from  doing  something  which  they  heretofore  thought  tbey  bad  a  right 
to  do.    Now  we  ask  you  to  ])rohibit  the  States  from  denying  to  women  their  rights. 

I  want  to  show  you  in  closing  tbat  of  tbe  great  acts  of  justice  done  during  tbe  war 
and  sinc(!  tbe  war  the  lirst  one  was  a  great  military  necessity.  We  never  got  ouv 
inch  of  headway  in  i)utting  down  the  rebellicm  until  the  purpose  of  this  great  nation 
was  declared  tbat  slavery  should  be  abolished.  Then,  as  if  by  magic,  we  went  for- 
ward and  put  down  the  rebellion.  At  the  close  of  the  rebellitui  the  nation  stood  again 
at  a  perfect  deadlock.  Tbe  Republican  ])arry  was  trembling  in  tbe  balanc*',  because 
it  fear«^d  that  it  could  not  bold  its  position  uiitil  it  sbduld  bave  secured  by  legislation 
to  tln'  (Jovcnimeut  what  it  bad  gaiued  at  tbe  ]»oint  of  the  sword,  ami  when  the  na- 
tion dcclare«l  its  purpose  to  enfranchise  the  negro  it  was  a  ])olitical  necessity.  I  do  not 
want  to  take  too  much  vainglory  out  of  the  beads  of  K'epublicaus,  but  nevertludess 
it  is  a  great  national  fact  that  neither  of  those  great  acts  of  beiu^licence  to  the  negro 
ra<'e  was  done  because  of  any  high,  overshadowing  moral  convict  ion  on  tbe  ])art  of 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


21) 


:iny  considerable  minority  oven  of  thv  people  of  this  nation,  bnt  simply  becansc  of  a 
military  necessity  slavery  was  abolished,  and  sin)])Iy  becanse  of  a  p()liti<'al  necessity 
black  men  were  entrancbised.  The  blackest  l\<']»nbli(  an  Stat<'  yon  had  voted  d(»wn 
ncfiro  snlfra<j;e,  and  that  was  Kansas  in  lf^(>7.  Michi«;an  voted  it  down  in  HiiT  ;  Ohio 
vote<l  it  down  in  IHw.  Iowa  w;is  the  only  State  that  over  voted  ne<;i-o  sntVniife  l»y  a 
majority  of  the  citi/.ens  to  which  the  (piestion  was  snbmitted,  and  they  had  not  more 
than  sevenry-live  neu;roes  in  the  whoh^  State  ;  so  it  was  not  a  very  practical  qnestion. 
Therefore,  it  may  be  fairly  said,  1  think,  t  hat  it  was  a  military  necessity  that  coinpciliMl 
on(^  of  those  acts  of  jnstice  and  a  political  necessity  that  comiu'lhid  the  other. 

It  seems  to  me  that  froni  the  first  word  nttercd  by  onr  dear  friend,  Mrs.  Kx-(jover- 
nor  Wallace  of  Indiana,  all  the  way  down,  we  have  been  ])rcsentin<<;  to  yon  the  fact 
that  tlu're  is  a  g;reat  moral  necessity  pressing;  njion  this  nation  to-day  that  yon  shall 
go  forward  and  attach  a  sixteenth  amendment  to  the  Federal  Constitntion  which  shall 
])nt  in  the  hands  of  the  women  of  this  nation  the  power  to  help  make,  sha))e,  and  con- 
trol the  social  conditions  of  society  everywhere.  1  appeal  to  yon  from  that  stand-j)oint 
that  yon  shall  submit  this  proposition. 

There  is  one  other  point  to  which  I  want  to  call  yonr  attetition.  The  Senate  .Jndi- 
ciary  Committee,  Senator  Edmnnds,  chainnau,  reported  that  the  United  States  conld 
do  nothing  to  ])rotect  women  iu  the  right  to  vote  under  the  amendments.  Now,  I  want 
to  give  yon  a  few  points  where  the  United  States  interferes  to  take  away  the  right  to 
vote  from  ^vonlen  where  the  State  lias  given  it  to  them.  In  Wyoming,  for  instance,  by 
a  Democratic  legislature,  the  women  were  enfranchised.  They  were  not  only  allowed 
to  vote,  but  to  sit  ujjon  juries,  the  same  as  men.  Those  of  you  who  read  the  reports 
giving  the  results  of  that  action  have  not  forgotten  that  the  hrst  result  of  women  sit- 
ting upon  juries  Avas  that  wherever  there  was  a  violation  of  the  whisky  l.aw  they 
brought  in  verdicts  accordingly,  for  the  execution  of  the  law  ;  and  you  will  remember, 
too,  that  the  lirst  man  whoever  had  a  verdict  ot  guilty  for  murder  in  the  first  degree  in 
that  Territory  was  tried  by  a  jury  made  up  largely  of  women.  Always  nj)  to  that  day 
every  jury  had  brought  in  a  verilict  of  shot  iu  self-defense,  although  the  person  shot 
down  may  have  been  entirely  unarmed.  Then  in  cities  like  Cheyenne  and  Laramie, 
persons  entered  complaints  against  keepers  of  houses  of  ill-fame.  Women  were  on 
the  jury,  and  the  result  was  iu  every  case  that  before  the  juries  could  bring  in  a  bill 
of  indictment  the  women  had  taken  the  train  and  left  the  town.  Why  do  you  hear 
no  more  of  women  sittiug  on  juries  in  that  Territory?  Simply  because  the  United 
States  marshal,  who  is  ai)pointed  by  the  President  to  go  to  Wyoming,  refuses  to  put 
the  names  of  women  into  the  box  from  which  tin;  jury  is  drawn.  There  the  United 
States  Government  interferes  to  take  the  right  awaj'. 

A  Delegate.  1  should  like  to  state  that  Governor  Hoyt,  of  Wyoming,  who  was  the 
governor  who  signed  the  act  giving  to  women  this  right,  informed  me  that  the  right 
had  been  restored,  and  that  his  sister,  who  resides  there,  recently  served  on  a  jury. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  am  glad  to  hear  it.  It  is  two  years  since  I  was  there,  but  1  was 
told  that  that  was  the  case.  In  Utah  the  women  were  given  the  right  to  vote,  but  a 
year  and  a  half  ago  their  legislative  assembly  found  that  although  they  had  the  right 
to  vote  the  territorial  law  provided  that  only  male  voters  should  hold  otlice.  The 
legislative  assembly  of  Utah  passed  a  bill  providing  that  women  should  be  eligible 
to  all  the  ottices  of  the  Territory.  The-  school  offices,  superintendents  of  schools,  were 
the  ottices  in  particular  to  wiaich  the  women  wanted  to  be  elected.  Governor  Emory, 
appointed  by  the  President  of  the  United  States,  vetoed  that  bill.  Thus  the  full 
operations  of  enfranchisement  conferred  by  two  of  the  Territories  has  l)eeii  stoj^ped 
by  Federal  interference. 

You  ask  why  I  come  here  instead  of  going  to  the  State  legislatures.  You  say  that 
whenever  the  legislatures  extend  the  right  of  sntfrage  to  us  by  the  constitutions  of 
their  States  we  can  get  it.  Massachusetts,  New  Hami)sliire,  Minnesota,  Colorado, 
Kansas,  Oregon,  all  thes<;  States,  have  had  the  school  sutl'rage  extended  by  legislative 
enactment.  If  the  (juestion  had  been  submitted  to  the  rank  and  tile  of  tlie  people  of 
Boston,  with  6(),(>0^>  men  })aying  nothing  but  the  ])oll-tax,  they  would  have  undoubt- 
edly voted  against  letting  women  have  the  right  to  vote  for  members  of  the  school 
board;  but  tlieir  intelligent  representatives  on  the  Hoor  of  the  legislature  voted  in 
favor  of  the  extension  of  the  school  suffrage  to  the  women.  The  first;  result  in  Boston 
has  been  the  <dection  of  quite  a  numberof  women  to  tiu'  school  board.  In  Minnesota, 
iu  the  little  town  of  Kochester,  the  school  l)oard  declared  its  purpose  to  cut  the 
women  teachers'  wages  down.  It  did  not  pro])ose  to  touch  the  j)rincipal,  who  was  a 
man,  but  they  proj)osed  to  cut  all  the  women  down  from  .^'jO  to  ^'Ao.  One  woman  ])ut 
her  bonnet  on  and  went  over  the  entire  town  and  said,  "  We  have  got  a  right  to  vote 
for  this  school  board,  and  let  us  do  so."  They  all  turned  out  ami  voted,  and  not  a 
single        man  was  re-elected,  but  all  those  who  wer<'  in  lavor  of  i)ayiug  $">('• 

It  seems  to  be  a  sort  of  chaiity  to  let  a  woman  teach  school.  You  say  here  that  if 
a  woman  has  a  father,  mother,  or  brother,  or  anybody  to  support  her,  she  cannot  have 
a  i)lace  in  the  Departments.  In  the  city  of  Ivochester  they  cannot  let  a  married  woman 
teach  school  because  she  has  got  a  husband,  and  it  is  supposed  he  ought  to  support 


30 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


lier.  The  women  are  working  in  the  Departments,  as  everywhere  else,  for  half  price, 
and  tli(i  only  pretext,  yon  tell  ns,  tor  kpej)in<;  women  there  is  l)eeanse  the  Government 
can  econoiiii/e  hy  fiiiplovini^  women  tor  less  money.  The  ()th('r  day  wIumi  1  saw  ;i 
newsp;ip(;r  Itvm  statiii<^  that  the  Government  proposed  to  c()mi)eiisate  Miss  .Jos<'phine 
Meeker  for  ;lll  her  bravery,  heroism,  and  terril)le  sntleiings  by  givifig  lier  a  place  in 
the  Interior  Department,  it  made  my  Idood  hoil  to  the  ends  of  my  lingers  and  toes. 
To  give  that  girl  a  chance  to  work  in  the  D<'partment ;  to  do  jnst  as  mnch  work  as  a 
man,  and  pay  her  half  as  mnch,  was  a  charity.  That  was  a  beneticence  on  the  i)art 
of  this  grand  Government  to  her.  We  want  the  ballot  lor  bread.  When  we  doe(|ual 
work  we  want  e<|iial  wages. 

Mrs.  Saxox.  Calirornia,  in  her  recent  convention,  prohibits  the  legislature  hereafter 
from  enacting  any  law  Jbr  woman's  snil'rage,  does  it  not? 

Miss  Anthony.  I  do  not  know.    I  have  not  seen  the  new  constitution. 

Mrs.  Saxon.  It  does.  The  convention  inserted  a  provision  in  the  constitution  th^t 
the  legislature  could  not  act  upon  the  subject  at  all. 

Miss  Anthony.  Everywhere  that  we  have  gone,  Senators,  to  ask  our  right  at  the 
hands  of  any  legislative  or  i>olitical  body,  we  have  been  the  subjects  of  ridicule.  For 
instance,  1  went  before  the  great  national  Deujocratic  convention  in  New  York,  in  18(iH, 
as  a  delegate  from  the  New  York  Woman  Suttrage  Association,  to  ask  that  great  i)arty, 
now  that  it  wanted  to  come  to  the  front  again,  to  i)Ut  a  genuine  Jetfersonian  ])lank  in 
its  platform,  ])ledging  the  ballot  to  all  citizens,  women  as  well  as  men,  should  it  come 
into  i)ower.  You  may  remember  how  Mr.  Seymour  ordered  my  petition  to  be  read, 
after  looking  at  it  in  the  most  scrutinizing  manner,  when  it  was  referred  to  the  com- 
mittee ()n  resolutions,  where  it  has  slept  the  sleep  of  death  from  that  day  to  this.  But 
before  the  close  of  the  convention  a  body  of  ignorant  workingmen  sent  in  a  petition 
clamoring  for  greenbacks,  and  you  remember  that  the  Deujocratic  jiarty  bought  those 
men  by  putting  a  solid  greenback  plank  in  the  platform.  Everybody  supposed  they 
would  nominate  Pendleton,  or  sonie  other  man  of  pronounced  views,  but  instead  of 
doing  that  they  nomiuated  Horatio  Seymour,  who  stood  on  the  fence,  pcditically  speak- 
ing. My  friends,  Mrs.  Stanton,  Lucretia  Mott,  and  women  who  have  brains,  and  educa- 
tion, woirien  who  are  tax-payers,  went  there  and  petitioned  for  the  ])ractical  ai)plication 
of  the  fun<lamental  principles  of  our  Government  to  one-half  of  the  i)eople.  Those 
most  ignorant  workingmen,  the  vast  mass  of  them  foreigners,  went  there,  ami  peti- 
tioned that  that  great  political  party  should  favor  greenbacks.  Why  did  they  treat 
those  workingmen  with  respect,  and  put  a  greenback  plank  in  their  platform,  and 
only  table  us,  and  ignore  ns?  Simply  because  the  workingmen  represented  the  power 
of  the  ballot.  They  could  make  or  unmake  the  great  Democratic  ])arty  at  that  «'lectiou. 
The  women  weie  i)owerless.  We  could  be  ridiculed  and  ignoreil  with  impunity,  and 
so  we  were  laughed  at,  and  put  on  the  table. 

Then  the  Kepublicans  went  to  Chicago,  and  they  did  just  the  same  thing.  They 
said  the  Government  bonds  must  ho,  })ind  in  precisely  the  currency  specified  by  the 
Congressional  enactment,  and  Talleyrand  himself  could  not  have  devised  how  not  to 
say  anything  better  than  the  Re[)ublicans  did  at  Chicago  on  that  (jtiestion.  Then 
they  nominated  a  man  who  had  not  any  iinancial  oi>iuions  whatever,  and  who  was 
not  known  exce])t  for  his  military  record,  and  they  went  into  the  campaign.  Bot  li 
those  ]>arlies  ha<l  this  petition  from  us. 

I  m(!t  a  woman  in  (xiaiul  Rajuds,  Mich.,  a  short  time  ago.  She  came  to  me  one 
moiningand  told  me  about  the  obscene  shows  licensed  in  that  city,  and  said  that  she 
thought  of  Memorializing  the  legislature.  I  said,  "Do;  you  (iriunot  do  anything 
else;  you  are  hel))less,  but  you  can  petition.  Of  course,  they  will  laugh  at  you." 
Notwithstanding,  I  drt^w  nj)  a  ))etition  and  she  circulated  it.  Twelve  hundred  of  the 
best  citizens  signed  that  petition,  and  the  lady  carried  it  to  tlie  legislature,  jnst  as  Mrs. 
Wallace  took  her  petition  in  tln^  Imliaiia  legislature  They  read  it,  laughed  at  it,  and 
laid  it  on  tlu;  talde:  and  at  tin;  (  lose  ot  the  session,  by  a  unanimous  vote,  they  re- 
tired in  a  solid  body  to  witness  the  obscene  show  themselves.  Alter  witnessing  it, 
they  not  only  allowed  the  license  to  continue  for  that  year,  but  they  have  licensed 
it  every  year  from  that  day  to  this,  against  all  the  protests  of  the  petitioners. 
[Laughter.  "| 

Senator  Ei)Mi\\DS.  Do  not  think  we  are  wanting  in  respect  to  you  and  the  ladies 
her*'  because  you  say  something  that  makes  us  laugh. 

Miss  Anthony.  You  are  not  laughing  at  me ;  you  art^  treating  me  respectfully,  be- 
cause you  are  hearing  my  argument;  you  are  not  asleep,  not  one  of  you,  ami  I  am  <le- 
lighti'd. 

Now,  I  am  going  to  tell  you  one  other  fact.  Seven  thousand  of  the  bt^.st  citizens  of 
Illinois  petitioned  the  legislature  in  1877  to  give  them'the  poor  privileg*'  of  voting  on 
the  license  (luestion.  A  gentleman  presented  their  petition  ;  the  ladies  were  in  the 
lobbi<  s  aiouiid  the  room.  A  gentleman  made  a  motion  that  the  president  of  the  State 
Association  of  Ihe  Christian  remperance  I'nion  be  allowed  to  addn-ss  the  legislature 
regarding  the  petition  of  the  memorialists,  when  a  gentleman  sprang  to  his  feel,  and 
said  it  was  wvW  (Miough  for  the  honorable  geutleniou  to  present  the  petition,  and  have 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


31 


it  received,  and  laid  on  the  table,  bnt  "  tor  a  j;entlenian  to  rise  in  liis  seat  and  projioHe 
that  the  valnable  time  of  the  honorable  <j;»*nt  Kmimmi  of  the  Illinois  le<;isl;itnre  sliould  l)e 
consnnied  in  discnssin«r  the  nonsense  of  those  women  is  ^oinj;  a  litth';  too  far.  I  move 
that  tlui  serjeant-at-arms  be  ordered  to  clear  the  hall  of  the  honse  of  rejjrcsmtatives 
of  the  mob:''  releriin<;  to  those  Cliristian  womm.  Now,  they  liad  had  th«'  h»bbyist.s 
of  the  whisky  rin«;  in  that  leijishitnre  for  yt'arsand  years,  not  only  around  it  at  respect- 
ful distances,  but  insidi*  the  i>ar,  and  nobody  ever  made  a  motion  t«»  cleai"  the  halls  of 
the  whisky  mob  there.    It  only  takes  Christian  women  to  niake  a  mob. 

Mrs.  Saxon.  We  were  treated  extremely  respectfully  in  Louisiana.  It  showed 
plainly  the  tem})er  of  the  convention  wIh'U  the  present  {governor  aduutted  that  woman 
suffrage  was  a  fact  bound  to  come.  They  gave  us  the  privilege  of  havin<r  women  on 
the  school  boards,  l)ut  then  the  otticers  are  appointed  by  men  who  are  i>oliticians. 

Miss  Anthony.  I  want  to  n  iid  a  tV  w  words  that  come  from  good  autliority,  Ibr 
black  nun  at  least.  I  tind  here  a  little  extract  that  I  copied  years  ago  from  the  Anti- 
Slavery  Standard  of  1870.  As  you  know,  Wendell  Phillips  was  the  editor  of  that  paper 
at  that  time  : 

"A  man  with  the  ballot  in  his  hand  is  the  master  of  the  situation.  He  defines  all 
his  other  rights;  what  is  not  already  given  him  he  takes.'' 

That  is  exactly  what  we  want.  Senators.  The  rights  you  have  not  already  given  us; 
■we  want  to  get  in  such  a  position  that  we  can  take  them. 

*'The  ballot  makes  every  class  sovereign  over  its  own  fate.  Corrui)tion  may  steal 
from  a  man  his  independence;  capital  may  starve,  and  intrigue  fetter  him,  at  times; 
but  against  all  these,  his  vote,  intelligently  and  honestly  cast,  is,  in  the  long  run,  his 
full  protection.  If,  in  the  struggle,  his  fort  surrenders,  it  is  only  because  it  is  betrayed 
from  within.  No  power  ever  permanently  wronged  a  voting  class  without  its  own 
consent." 

Senators,  I  want  to  ask  of  you  that  you  will,  by  the  law  and  parliamentary  rules  of 
your  committee,  allow  us  to  agitate  this  question  by  publishing  this  report  and  the 
report  whieh  you  shall  make  ui)on  our  petitions,  as  I  hope  you  will  make  a  report.  If 
your  committee  is  so  pressed  with  business  that  it  cannot  possibly  consider  and  report 
upon  this  <iuestiou  I  w  ish  some  of  you  would  make  a  motion  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate 
that  a  special  committee  be  appointed  to  take  the  whole  question  of  the  eniranchise- 
ment  of  women  into  consideration,  and  that  that  connnittee  shall  have  nothing  else 
to  do.  This  olf  year  of  ])olitics,  when  there  is  nothing  to  do  but  to  try  how  not  to  do 
it  (politically,  I  mean,  I  am  not  speaking  personally),  is  the  best  time  you  can  have 
to  consider  the  (piestion  of  woman  suthage,  and  I  ask  you  to  use- your  intluenee  with 
the  Senate  to  have  it  speciall.N  attended  to  this  year.  Do  not  make  us  come  here 
thirty  years  longer.  It  is  twelve  years  since  the  tirst  time  I  came  before  a  Senate  com- 
mittee. I  said  then  to  Charles  Sumner  if  I  could  make  the  honorable  Senator  from 
Massachusetts  believe  that  I  feel  the  degradation  and  the  humiliation  of  disfranchise- 
ment precisely  as  he  would  if  his  fellows  had  adjudged  him  incompetent  from  any 
cause  whatever  from  having  his  oi)ini()u  counted  at  the  ballot-bax  we  shouUl  have  our 
right  to  vote  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye. 

REMARKS  BY  MRS.  SARA  A.  SPENCER,  OF  WASHINGTON. 

Mrs.  Spp:ncer.  Congress  printed  10,000  copies  of  its  pmceedings  concerning  the 
memorial  services  of  a  dead  man,  Professor  Henry.  It  cost  me  three  months  of  hard 
work  to  have  3,000  copies  of  our  arguments  last  year  before  the  Committee  on  I'rivi- 
leges  and  Elections  i)rinted  for  10,000,000  living  women.  I  ask  that  the  connnittee 
will  have  iirinted  10,000  copii's  of  this  report. 

The  CiiAiiiMAN.  The  committee  have  no  power  to  order  the  printing.  That  can  only 
be  done  by  the  order  of  the  Senate.  A  resolution  can  be  otFered  to  that  ettect  in  the 
Senate.  I  have  only  to  say,  ladies,  that  you  will  admit  that  we  have  listened  to  you 
with  great  attention,  and  I  can  ceitainly  say  with  very  great  interest.  What  you 
have  said  will  be  duly  and  earnestly  considered  by  the  connnittee. 

Mrs.  Wallace.  I  wish  to  make  just  one  remark  in  reference  to  what  Senator  Tluir- 
man  said  as  to  the  ])()pular  vote  being  against  woman  sutfrage.  The  popular  vote  is 
against  it,  but  not  the  pojnilar  voice.  Owing  to  the  temperance  agitation  in  the  last 
six  years  the  growth  of  the  sutfrage  sentiment  among  the  wives  and  mothers  of  this 
nation  has  largely  increased. 

Mrs.  Spknckr.  In  behalf  of  the  women  of  the  United  States,  permit  me  to  thank  the 
Senate  Judiciary  Committee  for  their  respectlul,  courteous,  and  close  attention. 


o 


